The Gods and Demigods read the Lightening Thief
by StellaHunterOfArtemis
Summary: Title says everything. I'm new, so no remarks about my writing! Disclaimer - I don't own PJO! Percabeth. Rated T cause I'm trollish :
1. Vaporising Teachers

_Third Person's POV_

It was the middle of the week. The demigods (AKA, Percy, Annabeth, Thalia and Nico) and Grover were sitting on the beach, Percy and Annabeth, and Thalia and Nico holding hands. Thalia had only recently left the Hunt because she had fallen for Nico, and since then, they had started dating.

Suddenly, a golden light engulfed them, and when it vanished, so had the people.

_Zeus' POV_

It was the Winter Solstice, and we Gods, including Hades and Hestia, had assembled for our Annual Meeting. It was just after my Thalia got turned into a tree.

'Quiet! I thundered. **(AN-Sorry, couldn't resist)** 'Today, we have assembled here to-'

Just then, there was a golden flash of light, and a tumble of teens came falling down. I made a wind grab them, and they gently floated down – except for one. He just fell down, and cracked the floor. All of us stood up, concerned about the boy, when the sat up, rubbing his head, saying, 'You guys got the wind, while I got the ground? That is totally unfair…'

The blonde girl came up and said, 'Seaweed Brain, as though you got hurt.' She hoisted him up, and gave him a kiss on his cheek. The emo looking boy turned to us and gulped, saying, 'Guys, um…'

The others caught on and looked at us. The boy with black hair and sea-green eyes said,' Um, hello, can we just leave…'

A box fell down with the same flash of light as the teens and 8 books fell out of it. The goth girl picked up the note and read out

_Dear Gods and Demigods,_

_We have sent these teens from 2010 and for the Demigods' information, this is 2000. Please, Gods, don't incinerate the children, and Demigods, please do not reveal your parentage. As for the books, they are here for you to read; they are one Hero's adventures; he is with you. Have fun reading._

_The Fates._

_PS – First is the Lightening thief, second, the Sea of Monsters, third, the Titan's Curse, fourth, the Battle of the Labyrinth, fifth, the Last Olympian, sixth, the Lost Hero, seventh, the Son of Neptune, and eighth, the Mark of Athena._

'Okay,' said the black haired boy, as the goth girl finished reading,'Let me introduce us. I'm Percy Jackson,' Poseidon stiffened,' this is Annabeth Chase,'he pointed to the blonde girl,'this is Grover Underwood,' Percy pointed to the teen who was obviously a stayr,'Nico di Angelo,' to the emo boy, and Hades stiffened,'and Thalia Grace,' to the goth girl.

'Wait!' I said. 'You're _my_ daughter, Thalia, aren't you?' Thalia nodded.

Athena spoke up,'Let us read the first book. I'll go first.'

_Third Person's POV_

**Chapter 1: I Accidently Vaporize My Maths Teacher**

Apollo and Hermes spoke up,'_Accidentaly?'_

**Look, I didn't want to be half-blood.**

The demigods nodded, while we looked down guiltily.

**Being a half-blood is dangerous. If you're reading this because you think you might be one, my advice is: close this book right now. Believe whatever lie your mom or dad told you about your birth, and try to lead a normal life.**

**Being a half-blood is dangerous.**

'Check.'

**It's scary.**

'Check.'

**Most of the time, it gets you killed in painful, nasty ways.**

'And, check.'

**If you're a normal kid, reading this because you think its fiction, great. Read on. I envy you for being able to believe that none of this ever happened.**

**But if you recognize yourself in these pages —if you feel something stirring inside—stop reading immediately. You might be one of us. And once you know that, it's only a matter of time before **_**they **_**sense it too, and they'll come for you.**

**Don't say I didn't warn you.**

**My name is Percy Jackson.**

'No, you're Athena,' Apollo and Hermes snickered.

**I'm twelve years old.** **Until a **_**few **_**months ago, I was a boarding student at Yancy Academy, a private school for troubled kids in upstate New York.** **Am I a troubled kid?**

'Yup.' Grover and the demigods, sans Percy, said. Percy pouted.

**Yeah. You could say that.**

'See, even you agree.' Nico chuckled.

**I could start at any point in my short, miserable life to prove it, but things really started going bad last May, when our sixth-grade class took a field trip to Manhattan— twenty-eight mental-case kids and two teachers on a yellow school bus, heading to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to look at ancient Greek and Roman stuff.**

'It sounds like torture.' stated Poseidon.

**I know—it sounds like torture.**

The throne room was filled with laughter.

**Most Yancy field trips were.**

**But Mr. Brunner, out Latin teacher, was leading this trip, so I had hopes.**

**Mr. Brunner was this middle-aged guy in a motorized wheelchair. He had thinning hair and a scruffy beard and a frayed tweed jacket, which always smelled like coffee.**

'Chiron?' Hera asked. Percy nodded.

**You wouldn't think he'd be cool, but he told stories and jokes and let us play games in class. He also had this awesome collection of Roman armor and weapons, so he was the only teacher whose class didn't put me to sleep.**

**I hoped the trip would be okay. At least, I hoped that for once I wouldn't get in trouble.**

**Boy, was I wrong.**

**See, bad things happen to me on field trips. Like at my fifth-grade school, when we went to the Saratoga battlefield, I had this accident with a Revolutionary War cannon. I wasn't aiming for the school bus, but of course I got expelled anyway.** **And before that, at my fourth-grade school, when we took a behind-the-scenes tour of Marine World shark pool, I sort of hit the wrong lever on the catwalk and our class took an unplanned swim.**

'Epic!' yelled the more immature gods (Apollo and Hermes), while Artemis rolled her eyes. _Boys…_

**And the time before that… Well, you get the idea.**

**This trip, I was determined to be good.**

'Percy? Good? Impossible.' Thalia joked.

**All the way into the city, I put up with Nancy Bobofit, the freckly, redheaded kleptomaniac girl, hitting my best friend Grover in the back of the head with chunks of peanut butter-and-ketchup sandwich.**

**Grover was an easy target. He was scrawny. He cried when he got frustrated. He must've been held back several grades, because he was the only sixth grader with acne and the start of a wispy beard on his chin. On top of all that, he was crippled.**

'Thanks for the vote of confidence, Perce.' Grover said sarcastically.

**He had a note excusing him from PE for the rest of his life because he had some kind of muscular disease in his legs. He walked funny, like every step hurt him, but don't let that fool you. You should've seen him run when it was enchilada day in the cafeteria.**

**Anyway, Nancy Bobofit was throwing wads of sandwich that stuck in his curly brown hair, and she knew I couldn't do anything back to her because I was already on probation.**

**The headmaster had threatened me with death **

'What?' yelled Poseidon.

**by in-school suspension if anything bad, embarrassing, or even mildly entertaining happened on this trip.**

'Oh.' he said sheepishly.

"**I'm going to kill her," I mumbled.**

**Grover tried to calm me down. "It's okay. I like peanut butter."**

**He dodged another piece of Nancy's lunch.**

"**That's it." I started to get up, but Grover pulled me back to my seat.**

"**You're already on probation," he reminded me. "You know who'll get blamed if anything happens."**

**Looking back on it, I wish I'd decked Nancy Bobofit right then and there.** **In-school suspension would've been nothing compared to the mess I was about to get myself into.**

Poseidon started chewing his nails.

**Mr. Brunner led the museum tour.** **He rode up front in his wheelchair, guiding us through the big echoey galleries, past marble statues and glass cases full of really old black-and-orange pottery.**

**It blew my mind that this stuff had survived for two thousand, three thousand years.**

'Longer.' said Athena.

**He gathered us around a thirteen-foot-tall stone column with a big sphinx on the top, and started telling us how it was a grave marker, a **_**stele**_**, for a girl about our age. He told us about the carvings on the sides. I was trying to listen to what he had to say, because it was kind of interesting,** **but everybody around me was talking, and every time I told them to shut up, the other teacher chaperone, Mrs. Dodds, would give me the evil eye.**

**Mrs. Dodds was this little math teacher from Georgia who always wore a black leather jacket, even though she was fifty years old. She looked mean enough to ride a Harley right into your locker. She had come to Yancy halfway through the year, when our last math teacher had a nervous breakdown.**

Ares grinned evilly.

**From her first day, Mrs. Dodds loved Nancy Bobofit and figured I was a devil spawn. She would point her crooked finger at me and say, "Now, honey," real sweet, and I knew I was going to get after-school detention for a month.** **One time, after she'd made me erase answers out of old math workbooks until midnight, I told Grover I didn't think Mrs. Dodds was human. He looked at me, real serious, and said, "You're absolutely right."**

**Mr. Brunner kept talking about Greek funeral art.**

**Finally, Nancy Bobofit snickered something about the naked guy on the stele, and I turned around and said, "Will you **_**shut up**_**?"**

**It came out louder than I meant it to.**

'Of course it did.' said Athena, rolling her eyes.

**The whole group laughed. Mr. Brunner stopped his story.**

"**Mr. Jackson," he said, "did you have a comment?"**

**My face was totally red. I said, "No, sir."**

**Mr. Brunner pointed to one of the pictures on the stele. "Perhaps you'll tell us what this picture represents?"**

**I looked at the carving, and felt a flush of relief, because I actually recognized it. "That's Kronos eating his kids, right?"**

The gods who spent time in their stomach groaned. 'It had to be that one, didn't it.' Demeter grumbled.

"**Yes," Mr. Brunner said, obviously not satisfied.**

"**And he **_**did **_**this because…"**

"**Well…" I racked my brain to remember. "Kronos was the king god, and—"**

'God?' Zeus boomed. 'How dare you insult us!'

'I'll be corrected.' Percy said in fear of being blasted.

"**God?" Mr. Brunner asked.**

'See?'

"**Titan," I corrected myself. "And… he didn't trust his kids, who were the gods. So, um, Kronos ate them, right? But his wife hid baby Zeus, and gave Kronos a rock to eat instead.**

**And later, when Zeus grew up, he tricked his dad, Kronos, into barfing up his brothers and sisters—"**

"**Eeew!" said one of the girls behind me.**

'Eeew indeed,' all the goddesses muttered.

"—**and so there was this big fight between the gods and the Titans," I continued, "and the gods won."**

**Some snickers from the group**

**Behind me, Nancy Bobofit mumbled to a friend, "Like we're going to use this in real life. Like it's going to say on our job applications, 'Please explain why Kronos ate his kids.'"**

"**And why, Mr. Jackson," Brunner said, "to paraphrase Miss Bobofit's excellent question, does this matter in real life?"**

"Busted," Nico muttered.

"**Busted," Grover muttered.**

'You think like a goat, Death Head!' Percy laughed, along with the immature gods.

"**Shut up," Nancy hissed, her face even brighter red than her hair.**

**At least Nancy got packed, too. Mr. Brunner was the only one who ever caught her saying anything wrong. He had radar ears.**

**I thought about his question, and shrugged. "I don't know, sir."**

"**I see." Mr. Brunner looked disappointed. "Well, half-credit, Mr. Jackson. Zeus did indeed feed Kronos a mixture of mustard and wine, which made him disgorge his other five children, who, of course, being immortal gods, had been living and growing up completely undigested in the Titan's stomach. The gods defeated their father, sliced him to pieces with his own scythe, and scattered his remains in Tartarus, the darkest part of the Underworld. On that happy note, it's time for lunch. Mrs. Dodds, would you lead us back outside?"**

'How is that a happy note?' asked Hera.

Thalia just shrugged.'That's Chiron.'

**The class drifted off, the girls holding their stomachs, the guys pushing each other around and acting like doofuses.**

'They are doofuses,' Artemis muttered.

**Grover and I were about to follow when Mr. Brunner said, "Mr. Jackson."**

**I knew that was coming.**

**I told Grover to keep going. Then I turned toward Mr. Brunner. "Sir?"**

**Mr. Brunner had this look that wouldn't let you go— intense brown eyes that could've been a thousand years old and had seen everything.**

'You're very observant,' Athena said.

"**You must learn the answer to my question," Mr. Brunner told me.**

"**About the Titans?"**

"**About real life. And how your studies apply to it."**

"**Oh."**

"**What you learn from me," he said, "is vitally important. I expect you to treat it as such. I will accept only the best from you, Percy Jackson."**

**I wanted to get angry, this guy pushed me so hard.**

**I mean, sure, it was kind of cool on tournament days, when he dressed up in a suit of Roman armor and shouted: "What ho!" and challenged us, sword-point against chalk, to run to the board and name every Greek and Roman person who had ever **_**lived**_**, and their mother, and what god they worshiped.** **But Mr. Brunner expected me to be as good as everybody else, despite the fact that I have dyslexia and attention deficit disorder and I had never made above a C- in my life. No—he didn't expect me to be **_**as good;**_** he expected me to be **_**better. **_**And I just couldn't learn all those names and facts, much less spell them correctly.**

'That is so cool! I want Chiron to teach me!' Apollo and Hermes yelled.

**I mumbled something about trying harder, while Mr. Brunner took one long sad look at the stele, like he'd been at this girl's funeral.**

'He probably had.' Annabeth stated.

**He told me to go outside and eat my lunch.**

**The class gathered on the front steps of the museum, where we could watch the foot traffic along Fifth Avenue.**

**Overhead, a huge storm was brewing, with clouds blacker than I'd ever seen over the city.I figured maybe it was global warming or something, because the weather all across New York State had been weird since Christmas. We'd had massive snow storms, flooding, wildfires from lightning strikes. I wouldn't have been surprised if this was a hurricane blowing in.**

Hades groaned. 'What are you fighting about _now_?' he asked his younger brothers. They shrugged.

**Grover and I sat on the edge of the fountain, away from the others. We thought that maybe if we did that, everybody wouldn't know we were from **_**that **_**school—the school for loser freaks who couldn't make it elsewhere.**

"**Detention?" Grover asked.**

"**Nah," I said. "Not from Brunner. I just wish he'd lay off me sometimes. I mean—I'm not a genius."**

'_That_ is obvious.' Grover and the demigods, sans Percy said. Percy pouted.

**Grover didn't say anything for a while. Then, when I thought he was going to give me some deep philosophical comment to make me feel better, he said, "Can I have your apple?"**

**I didn't have much of an appetite, so I let him take it.**

**I watched the stream of cabs going down Fifth Avenue, and thought about my mom's apartment, only a little ways uptown from where we sat. I hadn't seen her since Christmas. I wanted so bad to jump in a taxi and head home.** **She'd hug me and be glad to see me, but she'd be disappointed, too. She'd send me right back to Yancy, remind me that I had to try harder, even if this was my sixth school in six years and I was probably going to be kicked out again. I wouldn't be able to stand that sad look she'd give me.**

'Aww!' all the goddesses cooed.

'Why can't you be like that?' Hera added to her sons. They rolled their eyes.

**Mr. Brunner parked his wheelchair at the base of the handicapped ramp. He ate celery while he read a paperback novel. A red umbrella stuck up from the back of his chair, making it look like a motorized café table.**

Hephaestus grinned and started copying the idea in his notebook. Aphrodite smiled at him, making Ares scowl.

**I was about to unwrap my sandwich when Nancy Bobofit appeared in front of me with her ugly friends—I guess she'd gotten tired of stealing from the tourists—and dumped her half-eaten lunch in Grover's lap.**

"**Oops." She grinned at me with her crooked teeth. Her freckles were orange, as if somebody had spray-painted her face with liquid cheetos. I tried to stay cool. The school counselor had told me a million times, "Count to ten, get control of your temper." But I was so mad my mind went blank. A wave roared in my ears.**

Hades and Zeus sent suspicious looks to Poseidon.

**I don't remember touching her, but the next thing I knew, Nancy was sitting on her butt in the fountain, screaming, "Percy pushed me!"**

**Mrs. Dodds materialized next to us.**

**Some of the kids were whispering: "Did you see—"**

"—**the water—"**

"—**like it grabbed her—"**

'You broke the oath!' Zeus shouted, standing up while his bolt appeared in his hand.

Poseidon held up his hands and said,'You did so first, brother. Let us finish.'

Zeus sat down reluctantly.

**I didn't know what they were talking about. All I knew was that I was in trouble again.**

**As soon as Mrs. Dodds was sure poor little Nancy was okay, promising to get her a new shirt at the museum gift shop, etc., etc., Mrs. Dodds turned on me. There was triumphant fire in her eyes, as if I'd done something she'd been waiting for all semester.**

"**Now, honey—"**

"**I know," I grumbled. "A month erasing workbooks."**

'Never guess your punishment.' Hermes lectured Percy.

**That wasn't the right thing to say.**

"**Come with me," Mrs. Dodds said.**

"**Wait!" Grover yelped. "It was me. **_**I **_**pushed her."**

**I stared at him, stunned. I couldn't believe he was trying to cover for me. Mrs. Dodds scared Grover to death.**

**She glared at him so hard his whiskery chin trembled.**

"**I don't think so, Mr. Underwood," she said.**

"**But—"**

"**You—**_**will**_**—stay—here."**

**Grover looked at me desperately.**

"**It's okay, man," I told him. "Thanks for trying."**

"**Honey," Mrs. Dodds barked at me. "**_**Now**_**."**

**Nancy Bobofit smirked.**

**I gave her my deluxe I'll-kill-you-later stare.**

'It's just too scary, man, scarier than Ares' you know?' Nico said. Percy smirked.

'Oh, is it?' Ares gave his stare, and Nico didn't flinch.

'Yep, definitely scarier.' Nico nodded.

**Then I turned to face Mrs. Dodds, but she wasn't there. She was standing at the museum entrance, way at the top of the steps, gesturing impatiently at me to come on.**

**How'd she get there so fast?**

**I have moments like that a lot, when my brain falls asleep or something, and the next thing I know I've missed something, as if a puzzle piece fell out of the universe and left me staring at the blank place behind it. The school counselor told me this was part of the ADHD, my brain misinterpreting things.**

'Don't be too sure,' Athena warned.

**I wasn't so sure.**

**I went after Mrs. Dodds.**

**Halfway up the steps, I glanced back at Grover. He was looking pale, cutting his eyes between me and Mr. Brunner, like he wanted Mr. Brunner to notice what was going on, but Mr. Brunner was absorbed in his novel.**

**I looked back up. Mrs. Dodds had disappeared again. She was now inside the building, at the end of the entrance hall.**

**Okay, I thought. She's going to make me buy a new shirt for Nancy at the gift shop.**

**But apparently that wasn't the plan.**

'It never is,' Annabeth sighed.

**I followed her deeper into the museum. When I finally caught up to her, we were back in the Greek and Roman section.**

**Except for us, the gallery was empty.**

**Mrs. Dodds stood with her arms crossed in front of a big marble frieze of the Greek gods. She was making this weird noise in her throat, like growling.** **Even without the noise, I would've been nervous. It's weird being alone with a teacher, especially Mrs. Dodds. Something about the way she looked at the frieze, as if she wanted to pulverize it…**

"**You've been giving us problems, honey," she said.**

**I did the safe thing. I said, "Yes, ma'am."**

'You, and safe thing? Impossible.' Thalia said. Percy gave her the death glare, and she flinched slightly.

**She tugged on the cuffs of her leather jacket. "Did you really think you would get away with it?"**

**The look in her eyes was beyond mad. It was evil.**

**She's a teacher, I thought nervously. It's not like she's going to hurt me.**

**I said, "I'll—I'll try harder, ma'am."**

**Thunder shook the building.**

"**We are not fools, Percy Jackson," Mrs. Dodds said. "It was only a matter of time before we found you out. Confess, and you will suffer less pain."**

'What is she talking about?' Athena thought, frustrated. She hated not knowing something.

**I didn't know what she was talking about.**

**All I could think of was that the teachers must've found the illegal stash of candy I'd been selling out of my dorm room.** **Or maybe they'd realized I got my essay on **_**Tom Sawyer **_**from the Internet without ever reading the book and now they were going to take away my grade. Or worse, they were going to make me read the book.**

'We love your son, Uncle P!' Apollo and Hermes shouted. Poseidon grinned.

"**Well?" she demanded.**

"**Ma'am, I don't…"**

"**Your time is up," she hissed.**

**Then the weirdest thing happened. Her eyes began to glow like barbecue coals. Her fingers stretched, turning into talons. Her jacket melted into large, leathery wings. She wasn't human. She was a shriveled hag with bat wings and claws and a mouth full of yellow fangs, and she was about to slice me to ribbons.**

'YOU SENT A FURY AFTER MY SON!' Poseidon yelled, lunging at Hades and pinning him to the ground. It took all the gods to pry him off. Annabeth was in a similar way, only not so noticeable. Poseidon's sisters smiled at him, thinking about his goodness as a father.

**Then things got even stranger.**

**Mr. Brunner, who'd been out in front of the museum a minute before, wheeled his chair into the doorway of the gallery, holding a pen in his hand.**

"**What ho, Percy!" he shouted, and tossed the pen through the air.**

**Mrs. Dodds lunged at me.**

**With a yelp, I dodged and felt talons slash the air next to my ear. I snatched the ballpoint pen out of the air, but when it hit my hand, it wasn't a pen anymore. It was a sword—Mr. Brunner's bronze sword, which he always used on tournament day.**

Annabeth and Poseidon sighed in relief.

**Mrs. Dodds spun toward me with a murderous look in her eyes.**

**My knees were jelly. My hands were shaking so bad I almost dropped the sword.**

**She snarled, "Die, honey!"**

**And she flew straight at me.**

**Absolute terror ran through my body. I did the only thing that came naturally: I swung the sword.**

'How is that natural?' asked Thalia. Athena answered,'That's because he's a demigod.'

Thalia nodded.

**The metal blade hit her shoulder and passed clean through her body as if she were made of water. **_**Hisss!**_

**Mrs. Dodds was a sand castle in a power fan. She exploded into yellow powder, vaporized on the spot, leaving nothing but the smell of sulfur and a dying screech and a chill of evil in the air, as if those two glowing red eyes were still watching me.**

**I was alone.**

**There was a ballpoint pen in my hand.**

**Mr. Brunner wasn't there. Nobody was there but me.**

**My hands were still trembling. My lunch must've been contaminated with magic mushrooms or something.**

'You have really weird comparisons,' Annabeth said, kissing his cheek. Fortunately, this exchange went unnoticed by Athena, but not Aphrodite. She smiled devilishly.

**I went back outside.**

**It had started to rain.**

**Grover was sitting by the fountain, a museum map tented over his head. Nancy Bobofit was still standing there, soaked from her swim in the fountain, grumbling to her ugly friends. When she saw me, she said, "I hope Mrs. Kerr whipped your butt."**

**I said, "Who?"**

"**Our **_**teacher**_**. Duh!"**

**I blinked. We had no teacher named Mrs. Kerr. I asked Nancy what she was talking about.**

**She just rolled her eyes and turned away.**

**I asked Grover where Mrs. Dodds was.**

**He said, "Who?"**

**But he paused first, and he wouldn't look at me, so I thought he was messing with me.**

'Grover, you can't lie to save your life.' Percy deadpanned.

"**Not funny, man," I told him. "This is serious."**

**Thunder boomed overhead.**

**I saw Mr. Brunner sitting under his red umbrella, reading his book, as if he'd never moved.**

**I went over to him.**

**He looked up, a little distracted. "Ah, that would be my pen. Please bring your own writing utensil in the future, Mr. Jackson."**

**I handed Mr. Brunner his pen. I hadn't even realized I was still holding it.**

"**Sir," I said, "where's Mrs. Dodds?"**

**He stared at me blankly. "Who?"**

"**The other chaperone. Mrs. Dodds. The pre-algebra teacher."**

**He frowned and sat forward, looking mildly concerned. "Percy, there is no Mrs. Dodds on this trip. As far as I know, there has never been a Mrs. Dodds at Yancy Academy. Are you feeling all right?"**

'Now Chiron can lie,' Hermes nodded approvingly.

'Who's reading next?' Athena asked, holding up the book.

'I will!' Poseidon said, and the book flew into his outstretched hand. He opened the page and started reading.


	2. Socks of Death

Chapter 2

**AN – Guys, I am totally psyched that so many people like my story! I am also thinking of writing a new story, for which I need Demigods' names. Please send your name, appearance, godly parent, past, personality and weapon (s) to me by next Sunday. Please also mention if you want the person to be in the Hunt. **

**Also, someone told me that my story might get deleted because of site rules, but I will continue this story till it gets deleted. Thanks, Stella.**

**Chapter 2: Three Old Ladies Knit the Socks of Death **read Poseidon.

**I was used to the occasional weird experience, but usually they were over quickly.** **This twenty four/seven hallucination was more than I could handle. For the rest of the school year, the entire campus seemed to be playing some kind of trick on me.** **The students acted as if they were completely and totally convinced that Mrs. Kerr—a perky blond woman whom I'd never seen in my life until she got on our bus at the end of the field trip—had been our maths teacher since Christmas.**

**Every so often I would spring a Mrs. Dodds reference on somebody, just to see if I could trip them up, but they would stare at me like I was psycho.**

'You are psycho,' Nico chuckled.

**It got so I almost believed them—Mrs. Dodds had never existed.**

**Almost.**

'Bet you 50 drachmas that it was Grover who let the secret out.' Apollo whispered to Hermes.

Hermes shook his head and said,'No way, I may not be a genius, but even I know that it's Grover.'

Apollo pouted.

**But Grover couldn't fool me. When I mentioned the name Dodds to him, he would hesitate, then claim she didn't exist. But I knew he was lying.**

**Something was going on. Something **_**had **_**happened at the museum.**

**I didn't have much time to think about it during the days, but at night, visions of Mrs. Dodds with talons and leathery wings would wake me up in a cold sweat.**

All the demigods winced, knowing that it was exactly what happened after facing their first monster.

**The freak weather continued, which didn't help my mood. One night, a thunderstorm blew out the windows in my dorm room.** **A few days later, the biggest tornado ever spotted in the Hudson Valley touched down only fifty miles from Yancy Academy. One of the current events we studied in social studies class was the unusual number of small planes that had gone down in sudden squalls in the Atlantic that year.**

'What's up with you two?' Hera studied Poseidon and Zeus. 'You both fight, but you have never fought this badly before.'

The two brothers just shrugged.

**I started feeling cranky and irritable most of the time.** **My grades slipped from Ds to Fs. I got into more fights with Nancy Bobofit and her friends. I was sent out into the hallway in almost every class.**

'That's horrible!' Athena and Annabeth said, appalled.

**Finally, when our English teacher, Mr. Nicoll, asked me for the millionth time why I was too lazy to study for spelling tests, I snapped. I called him an old sot. **

At that, Athena started laughing. Annabeth soon joined in. Percy looked confused, and seeing his look, Annabeth explained,' It means an old drunk.'

The occupants of the throne room burst out laughing.

**I wasn't even sure what it meant, but it sounded good.**

**The headmaster sent my mom a letter the following week, making it official: I would not be invited back next year to Yancy Academy.**

**Fine, I told myself. Just fine.**

**I was homesick.**

'Mama's boy,' Ares laughed. He got doused in water head to toe.

'You would be too, if you had my mother,' Percy said, reclining back, arm around Annabeth's waist.

**I wanted to be with my mom in our little apartment on the Upper East Side, even if I had to go to public school and put up with my obnoxious stepfather and his stupid poker parties.**

**And yet... there were things I'd miss at Yancy. The **_**view **_**of the woods out my dorm window, the Hudson River in the distance,**

'Don't tell me you'll miss the river,' Annabeth said in an _'I don't believe you'_ voice.

**the smell of pine trees. I'd miss Grover, who'd been a good friend, **

'Thanks,' Grover smiled.

**even if he was a little strange. **

The smile vanished.

**I worried how he'd survive next year without me.**

**I'd miss Latin class, too—Mr. Brunner's crazy tournament days and his faith that I could do well.**

**As exam week got closer, Latin was the only test I studied for. I hadn't forgotten what Mr. Brunner had told me about this subject being life-and-death for me. I wasn't sure why, but I'd started to believe him.**

'Good thing,' Poseidon said.

**The evening before my final, I got so frustrated I threw the **_**Cambridge Guide to Greek Mythology **_**across my dorm room.**

'How can you throw books?' Athena inquired with a horrified expression on her face.

**Words had started swimming off the page, circling my head, the letters doing one-eighties as if they were riding skateboards. There was no way I was going to remember the difference between Chiron and Charon, or Polydictes and Polydeuces.**

'I think you know it now, don't you?' Annabeth asked Percy. He smiled and nodded.

**And conjugating those Latin verbs? Forget it.**

**I paced the room, feeling like ants were crawling around inside my shirt.**

Nico shuddered, knowing what it felt like, curtsy of the Stolls.

**I remembered Mr. Brunner's serious expression, his thousand-year-old eyes. **_**I will accept only the best from you, Percy Jackson.**_

**I took a deep breath. I picked up the mythology book.**

'At least he picked up the book, Mom,' Annabeth tried to console her mother, who still looked horrified. **( AN – I just wanted to tell everyone that Athena knows Annabeth is her daughter, and I just forgot to add it before.)**

**I'd never asked a teacher for help before. Maybe if I talked to Mr. Brunner, he could give me some pointers. At least I could apologize for the big fat F I was about to score on his exam. I didn't want to leave Yancy Academy with him thinking I hadn't tried.**

**I walked downstairs to the faculty offices. Most of them were dark and empty, but Mr. Brunner's door was ajar, light from his window stretching across the hallway floor.**

**I was three steps from the door handle when I heard voices inside the office. Mr. Brunner asked a question. A voice that was definitely Grover's said**_**"...**_**worried about Percy, sir."**

**I froze.**

'Do you eavesdrop often?' Hermes asked, eagerly. Percy gestured to the book.

**I'm not usually an eavesdropper, but I dare you to try not listening if you hear your best friend talking about you to an adult.**

'Okay, that is one dare I will lose,' Nico said.

**I inched closer.**

**"... alone this summer," Grover was saying. "I mean, a Kindly One in the **_**school**_**! Now that we know for sure, and **_**they **_**know too—"**

**"We would only make matters worse by rushing him," Mr. Brunner said. "We need the boy to mature more."**

'A lot more,' Nico and Thalia muttered.

**"But he may not have time. The summer solstice deadline—**_**"**_

**"Will have to be resolved without him, Grover. Let him enjoy his ignorance while he still can."**

**"Sir, he **_**saw **_**her..."**

**"His imagination," Mr. Brunner insisted. "The Mist over the students and staff will be enough to convince him of that."**

**"Sir, I ... I can't fail in my duties again." Grover's voice was choked with emotion.**

'Grover, I told you not to beat yourself up over that particular incident!' Thalia scolded. Grover nodded.

**"You know what that would mean."**

**"You haven't failed, Grover," Mr. Brunner said kindly. "I should have seen her for what she was. Now let's just worry about keeping Percy alive until next fall—"**

**The mythology book dropped out of my hand and hit the floor with a thud.**

Hermes groaned,'Never give away your position!'

**Mr. Brunner went silent.**

**My heart hammering, I picked up the book and backed down the hall.**

'At least you didn't give away your position!'Hermes muttered.

**A shadow slid across the lighted glass of Brunner's office door, the shadow of something much taller than my wheelchair-bound teacher, holding something that looked suspiciously like an archer's bow.**

'Why would Chiron be out in his real form surrounded by mortals?' Athena asked.

Grover said,'He thought there was a monster around.'

**I opened the nearest door and slipped inside.**

**A few seconds later I heard a slow **_**clop-clop-clop, **_**like muffled wood blocks, then a sound like an animal snuffling right outside my door. A large, dark shape paused in front of the glass, then moved on.**

**A bead of sweat trickled down my neck.**

**Somewhere in the hallway, Mr. Brunner spoke. "Nothing," he murmured. "My nerves haven't been right since the winter solstice."**

**"Mine neither," Grover said. "But I could have sworn ..."**

**"Go back to the dorm," Mr. Brunner told him. "You've got a long day of exams tomorrow."**

**"Don't remind me."**

**The lights went out in Mr. Brunner's office.**

**I waited in the dark for what seemed like forever.**

**Finally, I slipped out into the hallway and made my way back up to the dorm.**

**Grover was lying on his bed, studying his Latin exam notes like he'd been there all night.**

**"Hey," he said, bleary-eyed. "You going to be ready for this test?"**

**I didn't answer.**

**"You look awful." He frowned. "Is everything okay?"**

**"Just... tired."**

**I turned so he couldn't read my expression, and started getting ready for bed.**

'Oh, so that was what happened! I couldn't understand what you were upset about!' Grover exclaimed. To the questioning glances, he said,'I could read his emotions all right, but all I could understand was that he was sad and upset.'

**I didn't understand what I'd heard downstairs. I wanted to believe I'd imagined the whole** **thing.**

**But one thing was clear: Grover and Mr. Brunner were talking about me behind my back. They thought I was in some kind of danger.**

**The next afternoon, as I was leaving the three-hour Latin exam, **

Annabeth gasped,' Okay, I like exams, but even for me three hours is just torture!' The demigods nodded in agreement.

**my eyes swimming with all the Greek and Roman names I'd misspelled, Mr. Brunner called me back inside.**

**For a moment, I was worried he'd found out about my eavesdropping the night before, but that didn't seem to be the problem.**

**"Percy," he said. "Don't be discouraged about leaving Yancy. It's ... it's for the best."**

**His tone was kind, but the words still embarrassed me. Even though he was speaking quietly, the other kids finishing the test could hear. Nancy Bobofit smirked at me and made sarcastic little kissing motions with her lips.**

'Now I am just going to kill this girl.' Thalia growled. 'Only I am aloud to annoy Percy.'

**I mumbled, "Okay, sir."**

**"I mean ..." Mr. Brunner wheeled his chair back and forth, like he wasn't sure what to say. "This isn't the right place for you. It was only a matter of time."**

**My eyes stung.**

'Wimp!' Ares laughed. He got doused by water.

**Here was my favorite teacher, in front of the class, telling me I couldn't handle it. After saying he believed in me all year, now he was telling me I was destined to get kicked out.**

'Chiron really sucks at pep talks, doesn't he?' asked Hermes. The demigods nodded.

**"Right," I said, trembling.**

**"No, no," Mr. Brunner said. "Oh, confound it all. What I'm trying to say ... you're not normal,** **Percy. That's nothing to be—"**

**"Thanks," I blurted. "Thanks a lot, sir, for reminding me.**

**"Percy—"**

**But I was already gone.**

**On the last day of the term, I shoved my clothes into my suitcase.**

**The other guys were joking around, talking about their vacation plans. One of them was going on a hiking trip to Switzerland. Another was cruising the Caribbean for a month. They were juvenile delinquents, like me, but they were **_**rich **_**juvenile delinquents. Their daddies were executives, or ambassadors, or celebrities.**

'But your father is a god!' Poseidon said smugly.

**I was a nobody, from a family of nobodies.**

'Haha, he thinks of his father as a noboby! Your father may be, but your other family members sure aren't!' Zeus laughed.

**They asked me what I'd be doing this summer and I told them I was going back to the city.**

**What I didn't tell them was that I'd have to get a summer job walking dogs or selling magazine subscriptions, and spend my free time worrying about where I'd go to school in the fall.**

**"Oh," one of the guys said. "That's cool."**

**They went back to their conversation as if I'd never existed. The only person I dreaded saying good-bye to, was Grover, but as it turned out, I didn't have to. He'd booked a ticket to Manhattan on the same Greyhound as I had, so there we were, together again, heading into the city.**

**During the whole bus ride, Grover kept glancing nervously down the aisle, watching the other passengers. It occurred to me that he'd always acted nervous and fidgety when we left Yancy, as if he expected something bad to happen. Before, I'd always assumed he was worried about getting teased. But there was nobody to tease him on the Greyhound.**

**Finally I couldn't stand it anymore.**

**I said, "Looking for Kindly Ones?"**

'Nearly gave me a heart attack,' Grover muttered. Percy shot him an apologetic smile.

**Grover nearly jumped out of his seat. "Wha—what do you mean?"**

**I confessed about eavesdropping on him and Mr. Brunner the night before the exam.****Grover's eye twitched. "How much **_**did **_**you hear?"**

**"Oh ... not much. What's the summer solstice dead-line?"**

'So basically everything!'

**He winced. "Look, Percy ... I was just worried for you, see? I mean, hallucinating about demon math teachers ..."**

**"Grover—"**

**"And I was telling Mr. Brunner that maybe you were overstressed or something, because there was no such person as Mrs. Dodds, and ..."**

**"Grover, you're a really, really bad liar."**

'I think I might have to mention it again.'

**His ears turned pink. From his shirt pocket, he fished out a grubby business card. "Just take this, okay? In case you need me this summer."**

**The card was in fancy script, which was murder on my dyslexic eyes,**

'Why did you have it made like that? They are dyslexic!' Athena frowned.

Dionysus shrugged. 'I just like to see them suffer.'

**but I finally made out something like:**

_**Grover Underwood**_

_**Keeper**_

_**Half-Blood Hill**_

_**Long Island, New York**_

_**(800) 009-0009**_

**"What's Half—?"**

**"Don't say it aloud!" he yelped. "That's my, um ... summer address."**

**My heart sank. Grover had a summer home. I'd never considered that his family might be as rich as the others at Yancy.**

'What's wrong with that?' Thalia asked. Percy shrugged. It had been a sore spot for him.

**"Okay," I said glumly. "So, like, if I want to come visit your mansion."**

**He nodded. "Or ... or if you need me."**

**"Why would I need you?"**

'Ouch, that's harsh!' Nico winced.

**It came out harsher than I meant it to.**

**Grover blushed right down to his Adam's apple. "Look, Percy, the truth is, I—I kind of have to protect you."**

**I stared at him.**

**All year long, I'd gotten in fights, keeping bullies away from him. I'd lost sleep worrying that he'd get beaten up next year without me.**

'You lost sleep over me?' an astonished Grover asked. Percy shrugged.

**And here he was acting like he was the one who defended **_**me.**_

**"Grover," I said, "what exactly are you protecting me from?"**

**There was a huge grinding noise under our feet. Black smoke poured from the dashboard and the whole bus filled with a smell like rotten eggs. The driver cursed and limped the Greyhound over to the side of the highway.**

**After a few minutes clanking around in the engine compartment, the driver announced that we'd all have to get off. Grover and I filed outside with everybody else.**

**We were on a stretch of country road—no place you'd notice if you didn't break down there.**

**On our side of the highway was nothing but maple trees and litter from passing cars. On the other side, across four lanes of asphalt shimmering with afternoon heat, was an old-fashioned fruit stand.**

**The stuff on sale looked really good: heaping boxes of blood red cherries and apples, walnuts and apricots, jugs of cider in a claw-foot tub full of ice**_**. **_**There were no customers, just three old ladies sitting in rocking chairs in the shade of a maple tree, knitting the biggest pair of socks I'd ever seen.**

Poseidon and Annabeth paled.

**I mean these socks were the size of sweaters, but they were clearly socks. The lady on the right knitted one of them. The lady on the left knitted the other. The lady in the middle held an enormous basket of electric-blue yarn.**

**All three women looked ancient, with pale faces wrinkled like fruit leather, silver hair tied back in white bandannas, bony arms sticking out of bleached cotton dresses. ****The weirdest thing was, they seemed to be looking right at me.**

Everyone realized the meaning of it, and paled too.

'The Fates,' Thalia whispered, through Nico's arms, in which she was wrapped.

**I looked over at Grover to say something about this and saw that the blood had drained from his face. His nose was twitching.**

**"Grover?" I said. "Hey, man—"**

**"Tell me they're not looking at you. They are, aren't they?"**

**"Yeah. Weird, huh? You think those socks would fit me?"**

**"Not funny, Percy. Not funny at all."**

'Not the time to joke, Percy,' Hermes whispered. He didn't want his new friend to die.

**The old lady in the middle took out a huge pair of scissors—gold and silver, long-bladed, like shears. I heard Grover catch his breath.**

**"We're getting on the bus," he told me. "Come on."**

**"What?" I said. "It's a thousand degrees in there."**

**"Come on!'" He pried open the door and climbed inside, but I stayed back.**

**Across the road, the old ladies were still watching me. The middle one cut the yarn, and I swear I could hear that **_**snip **_**across four lanes of traffic.**

Everybody caught their breath.

**Her two friends balled up the electric-blue socks, leaving me wondering who they could possibly be for—Sasquatch or Godzilla.**

**At the rear of the bus, the driver wrenched a big chunk of smoking metal out of the engine compartment. The bus shuddered, and the engine roared back to life.**

'Of course it does now!' Poseidon said shakily.

**The passengers cheered.**

**"Darn right!" yelled the driver. He slapped the bus with his hat. "Everybody back on board!"**

**Once we got going, I started feeling feverish, as if I'd caught the flu.**

Poseidon and Annabeth turned white, and Percy sent both of them a look that said,'I'm right here'.

**Grover didn't look much better. He was shivering and his teeth were chattering.**

**"Grover?"**

**"Yeah?"**

**"What are you not telling me?"**

**He dabbed his forehead with his shirt sleeve. "Percy, what did you see back at the fruit stand?"**

**"You mean the old ladies? What is it about them, man? They're not like ... Mrs. Dodds, are they?"**

'Much worse, my hero, much worse,' Hestia said, surprising everyone. She had just been sitting quietly, tending the hearth.

**His expression was hard to read, but I got the feeling that the fruit-stand ladies were something much, much worse than Mrs. Dodds. He said, "Just tell me what you saw."**

**"The middle one took out her scissors, and she cut the yarn."**

**He closed his eyes and made a gesture with his fingers that might've been crossing himself, but it wasn't. It was something else, something almost—older.**

'You're really very observant,' Athena said.

**He said, "You saw her snip the cord."**

**"Yeah. So?" But even as I said it, I knew it was a big deal.**

**"This is not happening," Grover mumbled. He started chewing at his thumb. "I don't want this to be like the last time."**

**"What last time?"**

**"Always sixth grade. They never get past sixth."**

"**He was really starting to freak me out" said Percy.**

**"Grover," I said, because he was really starting to scare me. "What are you talking about?"**

**"Let me walk you home from the bus station. Promise me."**

**This seemed like a strange request to me, but I promised he could.**

'Some promise,' Grover muttered.

**"Is this like a superstition or something?" I asked.**

**No answer.**

**"Grover—that snipping of the yarn. Does that mean somebody is going to die?"**

**He looked at me mournfully, like he was already picking the kind of flowers I'd like best on my coffin.**

'Way to scare him, Grover!'

'Who'll read?' Poseidon asked, marking and closing the book.

'I will!' Annabeth said. The book flew to her hands and she opened it to the marked page, cleared her throat and started reading to the silence.


	3. Vanishing Trousers

**Chapter 3: Grover Unexpectedly Loses his Pants **Annabeth read, then raised her eyebrows at Grover, who blushed.

**Confession time: I ditched Grover as soon as we got to the bus terminal.**

'Percy,' Poseidon groaned, looking freaked out.

'Sorry Dad,' Percy said sheepishly.'Grover was freaking me out.'

**I know, I know. It was rude.** **But Grover was freaking me out, looking at me like I was a dead man, muttering "Why does this always happen?" and "Why does it always have to be sixth grade?"**

**Whenever he got upset, Grover's bladder acted up, **

The throne room filled up with laughter, and Grover looked like an interbreed of cherries and tomatoes.

**so I wasn't surprised when, as soon as we got off the bus, he made me promise to wait for him, then made a beeline for the restroom.**

**Instead of waiting, I got my suitcase, slipped outside, and caught the first taxi uptown.**

**"East One-hundred-and-fourth and First," I told the driver.**

**A word about my mother, before you meet her.**

'A word to describe Sally would be, um…amazing!' Thalia said after long thought.

'Lovely,' Annabeth said a second after Thalia.

'Beautiful,' Percy and Poseidon said in unison, then grinned at each other.

'Best Cooker in the world!' Nico piped up with a dreamy look on his face.

'Death Breath!' Thalia said, smacking his head.'That wasn't one word!'

**Her name is Sally Jackson and she's the best person in the world,**

Percy nodded.

**which just proves my theory that the best people have the rottenest luck.**

Everyone frowned.

**Her own parents died in a plane crash when she was five, and she was raised by an uncle who didn't care much about her. She wanted to be a novelist,**

'She did?' Athena asked, astonished.

Percy nodded. Athena said,'Well then, how can such a noble woman fall in love with sea spawn?' She jerked her head towards Poseidon, who just ignored her.

**so she spent high school working to save enough money for a college with a good creative-writing program. Then her uncle got cancer, and she had to quit school her senior year to take care of him. After he died, she was left with no money, no family, and no diploma.**

'I will help her on in her career,'Athena vowed. Percy smiled,'Thank you, Athena.'

**The only good break she ever got was meeting my dad.**

'Aww,' all the goddesses cooed, the loudest being Aphrodite.

**I don't have any memories of him, just this sort of warm glow, maybe the barest trace of his smile.**

**My mom doesn't like to talk about him because **_**it **_**makes her sad. She has no pictures.**

**See, they weren't married. She told me he was rich and important, and their relationship was a secret. Then one day, he set sail across the Atlantic on some important journey, and he never came back.**

**Lost at sea, my mom told me. Not dead. Lost at sea.**

'Wow!' Hermes exclaimed.'That's a lie, but not a lie. Wow!'

**She worked odd jobs, took night classes to get her high school diploma, and raised me on her own. She never complained or got mad. Not even once. But I knew I wasn't an easy kid.**

'Be sure about that, bro!' Nico grinned.

**Finally, she married Gabe Ugliano, who was nice the first thirty seconds we knew him,**

Annabeth clenched her fists. Percy wrapped his arm around her and gave her a quick peck on the lips. This gesture did not go unnoticed by the gods; Athena clenched _her _fists, Poseidon shook his head, and Aphrodite squealed.

**then showed his true colors as a world-class jerk. When I was young, I nick named him Smelly Gabe. I'm sorry, but it's the truth. The guy reeked like moldy garlic pizza wrapped in gym shorts.**

'Eeww!' all the people in the room exclaimed.

**Between the two of us, we made my mom's life pretty hard. The way Smelly Gabe treated her, the way he and I got along ... well, when I came home is a good example.**

**I walked into our little apartment, hoping my mom would be home from work. Instead, Smelly Gabe was in the living room, playing poker with his buddies. The television blared ESPN. Chips and beer cans were strewn all over the carpet.**

All the female occupants wrinkled their noses, and the males looked disgusted. Annabeth leaned up and whispered in Percy's ear,'How did you manage to stay in that dump?'

Percy just kissed her in response, and they continued doing so, until someone coughed and they broke apart, both blushing furiously. Athena seemed to be the one who coughed, and she glared at them, saying,' You two, me, Poseidon – we are going to talk after this chapter.'

**Hardly looking up, he said around his cigar, "So, you're home."**

**"Where's my mom?"**

**"Working," he said. "You got any cash?"**

'He asked you for cash?' Thalia, asked disgustedly.

**That was it. No **_**Welcome back. Good to see you. How has your life been the last six months?**_

Hades snorted.'From what I've heard about him, I'd be highly surprised if he said that.'

**Gabe had put on weight. He looked like a tuskless walrus in thrift-store clothes. He had about three hairs on his head, all combed over his bald scalp, as if that made him handsome or something.**

Aphrodite squealed in disgust, and the other females gagged. Annabeth and Thalia looked sick. Their respective boyfriends pecked their cheeks, while the girls' parents glared at the boys.

**He managed the Electronics Mega-Mart in Queens, but he stayed home most of the time. I don't know why he hadn't been fired long before. He just kept on collecting paychecks, spending the money on cigars that made me nauseous, and on beer, of course. Always beer. Whenever I was home, he expected me to provide his gambling funds. He called that our "guy secret." Meaning, if I told my mom, he would punch my lights out.**

Annabeth and Poseidon growled. Percy kissed Annabeth; she did not pay heed, and then kissed him back. Percy broke away, and grinned at his father. He did notice the scene he had caused; Apollo and Hermes were laughing hard at Athena's face, Aphrodite was cooing, and Athena wanted nothing more than to blast Percy off Olympus. Poseidon noticed the uproar and new what caused it, but ignored it, and grinned back at his son.

**"I don't have any cash," I told him.**

**He raised a greasy eyebrow.**

**Gabe could sniff out money like a bloodhound, which was surprising, since his own smell should've covered up everything else.**

'Accurate,' Grover snorted.

**"You took a taxi from the bus station," he said. "Probably paid with a twenty. Got six, seven bucks in change. Somebody expects to live under this roof, he ought to carry his own weight. Am I right, Eddie?"**

**Eddie, the super of the apartment building, looked at me with a twinge of sympathy. **

'At least someone has some sense,' all the female occupants muttered, and the demigod girls' boyfriends' pecked their cheeks again, causing much displeasure amongst some gods.

**"Come on, Gabe," he said. "The kid just got here."**

**"Am I **_**right**_**?**_**"**_**Gabe repeated.**

**Eddie scowled into his bowl of pretzels. The other two guys passed gas in harmony.**

'I take my word back,' Annabeth gagged, looking sick. Thalia and the other females looked like they'd need a sink very soon.

**"Fine," I said. I dug a wad of dollars out of my pocket and threw the money on the table. "I hope you lose."**

**"Your report card came, brain boy!" he shouted after me. "I wouldn't act so snooty!"**

**I slammed the door to my room, which really wasn't my room. During school months, it was Gabe's "study." He didn't study anything in there except old car magazines, but he loved shoving my stuff in the closet, leaving his muddy boots on my windowsill, and doing his best to make the place smell like his nasty cologne and cigars and stale beer.**

'How did you stay there?' asked Thalia, while trying not to get sick. Percy, looking disgusted, said,'I didn't, I only went home at night. The rest of the time I spent outside.'

**I dropped my suitcase on the bed. Home sweet home.**

'I love your sarcasm!' Nico chuckled on Thalia's behalf, who still looked sick.

**Gabe's smell was almost worse than the nightmares about Mrs. Dodds,** **or the sound of that old fruit lady's shears snipping the yarn.**

'That bad, huh?' Annabeth questioned, her arm around Percy's waist, and vice–versa. He just leaned down and gave her a peck on the lips.

**But as soon as I thought that, my legs felt weak. I remembered Grover's look of panic—how he'd made me promise I wouldn't go home without him. A sudden chill rolled through me. I felt like someone—something—was looking for me right now, maybe pounding its way up the stairs, growing long, horrible talons.**

**Then I heard my mom's voice. "Percy?"**

**She opened the bedroom door, and my fears melted.**

**My mother can make me feel good just by walking into the room.**

'That's the way it's supposed to be,' Hera nodded in approval, while giving a reproachful look to her sons.

**Her eyes sparkle and change color in the light. Her smile is as warm as a quilt. She's got a few gray streaks mixed in with her long brown hair, but I never think of her as old. When she looks at me, it's like she's seeing all the good things about me, none of the bad.**

**I've never heard her raise her voice or say an unkind word to anyone, not even me or Gabe.**

'And that sure must be something,' Annabeth joked. Percy pouted, and Annabeth gave him a peck.

**"Oh, Percy." She hugged me tight. "I can't believe it. You've grown since Christmas!"**

**Her red-white-and-blue Sweet on America uniform smelled like the best things in the world: chocolate, licorice, and all the other stuff she sold at the candy shop in Grand Central. She'd brought me a huge bag of "free samples," the way she always did when I came home.**

**We sat together on the edge of the bed. While I attacked the blueberry sour strings, she ran her hand through my hair and demanded to know everything I hadn't put in my letters. She didn't mention anything about my getting expelled. She didn't seem to care about that. But was I okay? Was her little boy doing all right?**

All the goddesses cooed.

**I told her she was smothering me, and to lay off and all that, but secretly, I was really, really glad to see her.**

'Boys,' Artemis rolled her eyes.

**From the other room, Gabe yelled, "Hey, Sally—how about some bean dip, huh?"**

**I gritted my teeth.**

**My mom is the nicest lady in the world. She should've been married to a millionaire, not to some jerk like Gabe.**

'Paul may not be a millionaire, but I think she's happy with him,' Nico said.

**For her sake, I tried to sound upbeat about my last days at Yancy Academy. I told her I wasn't too down about the expulsion. I'd lasted almost the whole year this time. I'd made some new friends. I'd done pretty well in Latin. And honestly, the fights hadn't been as bad as the headmaster said. I liked Yancy Academy. I really did. I put such a good spin on the year, I almost convinced myself.**

Annabeth and Thalia rolled their eyes.

**I started choking up, thinking about Grover and Mr. Brunner. Even Nancy Bobofit suddenly didn't seem so bad.**

**Until that trip to the museum...**

**"What?" my mom asked. Her eyes tugged at my conscience, trying to pull out the secrets. "Did something scare you?"**

**"No, Mom."**

'Don't lie!' Hera shouted.

**I felt bad lying. **

'As you should.' Hera muttered.

**I wanted to tell her about Mrs. Dodds and the three old ladies with the yarn, but I thought it would sound stupid.**

**She pursed her lips. She knew I was holding back, but she didn't push me.**

**"I have a surprise for you," she said. "We're going to the beach."**

**My eyes widened. "Montauk?"**

Poseidon's face lit up as he thought of his memories of Montauk.

**"Three nights—same cabin."**

**"When?"**

**She smiled. "As soon as I get changed."**

**I couldn't believe it. My mom and I hadn't been to Montauk the last two summers, because Gabe said there wasn't enough money.**

The whole throne room growled.

**Gabe appeared in the doorway and growled, "Bean dip, Sally? Didn't you hear me?"**

'Hades,' Poseidon said fake – sweetly. 'Please send this – man – to the Fields of Punishment.'

Hades smiled evilly. 'I already have listed him for there, little brother. I already have.'

**I wanted to punch him, but I met my mom's eyes and I understood she was offering me a deal: be nice to Gabe for a little while. Just until she was ready to leave for Montauk. Then we would get out of here.**

**"I was on my way, honey," she told Gabe. "We were just talking about the trip."**

**Gabe's eyes got small. "The trip? You mean you were serious about that?"**

**"I knew it," I muttered. "He won't let us go."**

'He better!' Poseidon threatened.

**"Of course he will," my mom said evenly. "Your step father is just worried about money. That's all. Besides," she added, "Gabriel won't have to settle for bean dip. I'll make him enough seven-layer dip for the whole weekend. Guacamole. Sour cream. The works."**

**Gabe softened a bit. "So this money for your trip ... it comes out of your clothes budget, right?"**

'You can't put a budget on clothes!' Aphrodite shrieked.

**"Yes, honey," my mother said.**

**"And you won't take my car anywhere but there and back."**

**"We'll be very careful."**

**Gabe scratched his double chin. "Maybe if you hurry with that seven-layer dip ... And maybe if the kid apologizes for interrupting my poker game."**

**Maybe if I kick you in your soft spot, I thought. And make you sing soprano for a week.**

'DO IT!' almost everybody screamed.

**But my mom's eyes warned me not to make him mad.**

**Why did she put up with this guy? I wanted to scream. Why did she care what he thought?**

'It was all for you,' Grover muttered.

**"I'm sorry," I muttered. "I'm really sorry I interrupted your incredibly important poker game. Please go back to it right now."**

**Gabe's eyes narrowed. His tiny brain was probably trying to detect sarcasm in my statement.**

'He doesn't even have a brain,' Athena, Thalia and Nico scoffed.

**"Yeah, whatever," he decided.**

**He went back to his game.**

**"Thank you, Percy," my mom said. "Once we get to Montauk, we'll talk more about... whatever you've forgotten to tell me, okay?"**

**For a moment, I thought I saw anxiety in her eyes—the same fear I'd seen in Grover during the bus ride—as if my mom too felt an odd chill in the air.**

Annabeth's eyes widened.

**But then her smile returned, and I figured I must have been mistaken. She ruffled my hair and went to make Gabe his seven-layer dip.**

**An hour later we were ready to leave.**

**Gabe took a break from his poker game long enough to watch me lug my mom's bags to the car. He kept griping and groaning about losing her cooking—and more important, his '78 Camaro—for the whole weekend.**

**"Not a scratch on this car, brain boy," he warned me as I loaded the last bag. "Not one little scratch."**

'Like you'd be the one driving,' Annabeth and Poseidon said.

**Like I'd be the one driving. I was twelve. But that didn't matter to Gabe. If a seagull so much as pooped on his paint job, he'd find a way to blame me.**

**Watching him lumber back toward the apartment building, I got so mad I did something I can't explain.**

**As Gabe reached the doorway, I made the hand gesture I'd seen Grover make on the bus, a sort of warding-off-evil gesture, a clawed hand over my heart, then a shoving movement toward Gabe. The screen door slammed shut so hard it whacked him in the butt and sent him flying up the stair case as if he'd been shot from a cannon.**

Everyone stared at Percy. 'How did you do that?' Nico asked in astonishment.

**Maybe it was just the wind, or some freak accident with the hinges, but I didn't stay long enough to find out.**

**I got in the Camaro and told my mom to step on it.**

**Our rental cabin was on the south shore, way out at the tip of Long Island. It was a little pastel box with faded curtains, half sunken into the dunes. There was always sand in the sheets and spiders in the cabinets,**

Annabeth and Athena shuddered.

**and most of the time the sea was too cold to swim in. I loved the place.**

'Of course you did,' Annabeth rolled her eyes.

**We'd been going there since I was a baby. My mom had been going even longer. She never exactly said, but I knew why the beach was special to her. It was the place where she'd met my dad.**

**As we got closer to Montauk, she seemed to grow younger, years of worry and work disappearing from her face. Her eyes turned the color of the sea.**

**We got there at sunset, opened all the cabin's windows, and went through our usual cleaning routine.**

**We walked on the beach, fed blue corn chips to the seagulls, and munched on blue jelly beans, blue saltwater taffy, and all the other free samples my mom had brought from work.**

'What's up with the blue food?' asked Apollo.

**I guess I should explain the blue food.**

**See, Gabe had once told my mom there was no such thing. They had this fight, which seemed like a really small thing at the time. But ever since, my mom went out of her way to eat blue. She baked blue birthday cakes. She mixed blueberry smoothies. She bought blue-corn tortilla chips and brought home blue candy from the shop. This—along with keeping her maiden name, Jackson, rather than calling herself Mrs. Ugliano—was proof that she wasn't totally suckered by Gabe. She did have a rebellious streak, like me.**

'You don't have a rebellious streak, Percy. If you have a streak it's an obedient one.' Annabeth rolled her eyes.

'If I had not been rebellious, you two would not be here,' Percy shot back. The two shut up.

**When it got dark, we made a fire. We roasted hot dogs and marshmallows. Mom told me stories about when she was a kid, back before her parents died in the plane crash. She told me about the books she wanted to write someday, when she had enough money to quit the candy shop.**

**Eventually, I got up the nerve to ask about what was always on my mind whenever we came to Montauk—my father. Mom's eyes went all misty. I figured she would tell me the same things she always did, but I never got tired of hearing them.**

Poseidon grinned at Percy, who grinned back.

**"He was kind, Percy," she said. "Tall, handsome, and powerful. But gentle, too. You have his black hair, you know, and his green eyes."**

**Mom fished a blue jelly bean out of her candy bag. "I wish he could see you, Percy. He would be so proud."**

'I am!' Poseidon exclaimed.

**I wondered how she could say that. What was so great about me? A dyslexic, hyperactive boy with a D+ report card, kicked out of school for the sixth time in six years.**

**"How old was I?" I asked. "I mean ... when he left?"**

**She watched the flames. "He was only with me for one summer, Percy. Right here at this beach. This cabin."**

**"But... he knew me as a baby."**

**"No, honey. He knew I was expecting a baby, but he never saw you. He had to leave before you were born."**

**I tried to square that with the fact that I seemed to remember ... something about my father. A warm glow. A smile.**

'I did come to visit you once, you know?' Poseidon asked. Percy nodded.

**I had always assumed he knew me as a baby. My mom had never said it outright, but still, I'd felt it must be true. Now, to be told that he'd never even seen me...**

**I felt angry at my father. Maybe it was stupid, but I resented him for going on that ocean voyage, for not having the guts to marry my mom. He'd left us, and now we were stuck with Smelly Gabe.**

**"Are you going to send me away again?" I asked her. "To another boarding school?"**

**She pulled a marshmallow from the fire.**

**"I don't know, honey." Her voice was heavy. "I think ... I think we'll have to do something."**

**"Because you don't want me around?"**

**I regretted the words as soon as they were out.**

'You should!' Thalia and Annabeth screamed.

**My mom's eyes welled with tears. She took my hand, squeezed it tight. "Oh, Percy, no. I—I **_**have **_**to, honey. For your own good. I have to send you away."**

**Her words reminded me of what Mr. Brunner had said—that it was best for me to leave Yancy.**

**"Because I'm not normal," I said.**

**"You say that as if it's a bad thing, Percy. But you don't realize how important you are. I thought Yancy Academy would be far enough away. I thought you'd finally be safe."**

**"Safe from what?"**

**She met my eyes, and a flood of memories came back to me—all the weird, scary things that had ever happened to me, some of which I'd tried to forget.**

**During third grade, a man in a black trench coat had stalked me on the playground. When the teachers threatened to call the police, he went away growling, but no one believed me when I told them that under his broad-brimmed hat, the man only had one eye, right in the middle of his head.**

'I sent the Cyclopes to check on Percy,' Poseidon replied to the questioning glances.

**Before that—a really early memory. I was in preschool, and a teacher accidentally put me down for a nap in a cot that a snake had slithered into. My mom screamed when she came to pick me up and found me playing with a limp, scaly rope I'd somehow managed to strangle to death with my meaty toddler hands.**

Everyone looked at Percy in awe.

**In every single school, something creepy had happened, something unsafe, and I was forced to move.**

**I knew I should tell my mom about the old ladies at the fruit stand, and Mrs. Dodds at the art museum, about my weird hallucination that I had sliced my math teacher into dust with a sword. But I couldn't make myself tell her. I had a strange feeling the news would end our trip to Montauk, and I didn't want that.**

**"I've tried to keep you as close to me as I could," my mom said. "They told me that was a mistake. But there's only one other option, Percy—the place your father wanted to send you. And I just... I just can't stand to do it."**

**"My father wanted me to go to a special school?"**

**"Not a school," she said softly. "A summer camp."**

**My head was spinning. Why would my dad—who hadn't even stayed around long enough to see me born— talk to my mom about a summer camp? And if it was so important, why hadn't she ever mentioned it before?**

**"I'm sorry, Percy," she said, seeing the look in my eyes. "But I can't talk about it. I—I couldn't send you to that place. It might mean saying good-bye to you for good."**

**"For good? But if it's only a summer camp ..."**

**She turned toward the fire, and I knew from her expression that if I asked her any more questions she would start to cry.**

**That night I had a vivid dream.**

'I hate your dreams!' Nico groaned.

**It was storming on the beach, and two beautiful animals, a white horse and a golden eagle, were trying to kill each other at the edge of the surf.**

**The eagle swooped down and slashed the horse's muzzle with its huge talons. The horse reared up and kicked at the eagles wings. As they fought, the ground rumbled, and a monstrous voice chuckled somewhere beneath the earth, goading the animals to fight harder.**

**I ran toward them, knowing I had to stop them from killing each other, but I was running in slow motion. I knew I would be too late. I saw the eagle dive down, its beak aimed at the horse's wide eyes, and I screamed,**___**No!**_

'I win!' Zeus shouted. He got blasted with water.

**I woke with a start.**

**Outside, it really was storming, the kind of storm that cracks trees and blows down houses. There was no horse or eagle on the beach, just lightning making false daylight, and twenty-foot waves pounding the dunes like artillery.**

**With the next thunderclap, my mom woke. She sat up, eyes wide, and said, "Hurricane."**

**I knew that was crazy. Long Island never sees hurricanes this early in the summer. But the ocean seemed to have forgotten. **

'Yes Uncle P, how could you forget?' Apollo joked.

**Over the roar of the wind, I heard a distant bellow, an angry, tortured sound that made my hair stand on end.**

**Then a much closer noise, like mallets in the sand. A desperate voice—someone yelling, pounding on our cabin door.**

**My mother sprang out of bed in her nightgown and threw open the lock.**

**Grover stood framed in the doorway against a backdrop of pouring rain. But he wasn't... he wasn't exactly Grover.**

**"Searching all night," he gasped. "What were you thinking?"**

**My mother looked at me in terror—not scared of Grover, but of why he'd come.**

**"Percy," she said, shouting to be heard over the rain. "What happened at school? What didn't you tell me?"**

**I was frozen, looking at Grover. I couldn't understand what I was seeing.**

_**"O Zeu kai alloi theoi!"**_**he yelled. "It's right behind me! Didn't you **_**tell **_**her?"**

**I was too shocked to register that he'd just cursed in Ancient Greek, and I'd understood him perfectly. I was too shocked to wonder how Grover had gotten here by himself in the middle of the night. Because Grover didn't have his pants on—and where his legs should be ... where his legs should be...**

'Get on with it!' Nico screamed.

**My mom looked at me sternly and talked in a tone she'd never used before:**_**"Percy. **_**Tell me **_**now**_**!"**

**I stammered something about the old ladies at the fruit stand, and Mrs. Dodds, and my mom stared at me, her face deathly pale in the flashes of lightning.**

**She grabbed her purse, tossed me my rain jacket, and said, "Get to the car. Both of you. **_**Go**_**!**_**"**_

**Grover ran for the Camaro—but he wasn't running, exactly. He was trotting, shaking his shaggy hindquarters, and suddenly his story about a muscular disorder in his legs made sense to me. I understood how he could run so fast and still limp when he walked.**

**Because where his feet should be, there were no feet. There were cloven hooves.**

'Finally!' Nico said.

'Who's reading next?' Annabeth asked, marking and closing the book.

'I will!' Hestia said. Everyone jumped, Hestia had been so quiet, everyone forgot she was there. She had quietly been tending the hearth. The book flew into Hestia's hand, and she opened the correct page and started reading.


	4. Break I

**AN – Hey guys, I'm back. And I have some bad news. My exams are starting, so I'll be allowed on the computer only on Saturday and Sunday. I'll be updating only on Sundays till 3****rd****. And I desperately need some characters! Please, just review or PM me your details as listed in Chp 2 (You can make anything and everything up), and for your info, the gods know exactly who's kids the demigods are. Thanks for reading and I'm sorry for the inconvenience.**

'Hold on!' Athena said, just as Hestia started. 'We – Percy, Annabeth and I – were going to have a talk. Come, you two!'

She stood, shrunk to human size, and swept out of the room. Percy and Annabeth gave each other nervous looks, and followed her.

Zeus said,'And about that, Thalia, Nico, and I are going to have a talk too.' He followed Athena's example to another room, and was followed by Thalia and Nico. Grover sat in awkward silence along with most gods, until Poseidon said,'Why don't we just have a half an hour break?' As everyone agreed, they turned to leave.

Just as the gods and goddesses were going to flash out, a scream was heard from the ceiling and they looked up to see a tumble of bodies come down.

**Annabeth POV**

Mom, Percy and I went outside the throne room and into Mom's temple. She turned to face us.

'What is on with you two?' Mom asked. 'At first, I thought you both are best friends, but you seem like you're dating. I want to know.'

I started speaking,'Um, the thing is, Mom, that we're kinda…dating…'

'What!' Mom exploded. 'A sea spawn? I thought you were better than that! I…'

Percy said,'Lady Athena, um, actually, you've given us permission for dating…in the future, you know.'

She sighed. 'Okay, fine, but please, don't make it so obvious, will you?'

Without waiting for an answer, she walked into the throne room. We followed, and heard a scream, then started running.

**Thalia POV**

Dad took Nico and me to a room, and turned to us.

'Aren't you a son of Hades?' He asked Nico.

'Yes.'

'Are you two dating?'

'Yes.'

'Thalia,' Dad asked. 'Why are you dating a creature from the _Underworld_?'

'Dad,' I sighed. 'You were the one who gave me permission to date Nico, okay?'

He just sighed, and walked back to the throne room. Nico and I looked at each other, and were going to say something, when there was a scream from the throne room, and we fled, pushing ourselves into the throne room.

**Like it? Please review. Also, I need ideas on who should come in. I have already planned some of who will come : Traiv, Conner, Katie, Clarisse and Chris. Please tell me whom all you want to come in. Thanks again and please also read the above AN. Thanks.**


	5. Author's Note 1

Author's Note

Soooooooory so much for not updating for such a long time! I just had my exams and did not have time to upload for toooo much time. I promise, in the next 24 – 48 hours you'll get your next two updates. I swear! I'm working on one, then the next will be on the way too! I promise! Plus, i've even got a couple of new stories going; one is adopted from ilovepiano12 (The Mark of Athena Goes Haywire). Check it out in a couple of days!

Stella

(I'm also working on making my signature out here, even tho my name's not Stella, y'know?)


	6. Break I Contd

**AN – Okay guys I want to inform you that I'm changing the ages of the demigods. Percy, Annabeth and Grover are going to be 19 (Tho for Grover he'd be 38, bet at the same time, 19). Nico is 17, about to turn 18, and Thalia is 17 and a half. The HoO has occurred, and demigods won the war.**

**Third Person's POV**

The moment Zeus, Athena and the demigods came in the room, the tumble of bodies which was falling fell on the floor. There were a couple of yells of pain and some 'Ouch's. The demigods and Grover seemed to recognize the voices and they gasped. Annabeth and Thalia ran towards the tumble of bodies, and helped the kids up one by one.

Annabeth helped a girl with brown hair and meadow – green eyes up, then hugged her.

'Katie, it's so good to see you!' Annabeth exclaimed. Demeter gasped, recognizing the name. _It couldn't be _her_ daughter, Katie Gardiner, could it?_

Thalia, meanwhile, had helped a girl with stringy brown hair and brown eyes up and was saying hi to her in a weird manner, which I am unable to describe. Nico had taken charge of a boy with sandy hair, and deep brown eyes. Grover seemed not want to get close to the other two boys, both with dark brown hair and mischievous brown eyes, and looking like they were twins. One Percy and the twins finished greeting each other, he held out his hand, and one twin, the taller one, gave him a wallet, and the shorter, a pouch full of drachmas.

Annabeth took charge of introductions. 'Well, this girl is Katie Gardiner, daughter of Demeter,' she pointed at the girl she had hugged, 'That's her boyfriend, Travis Stoll, son of Hermes, and his twin, Connor **( AN - I know that in the books, they are only brothers, but in this story, they are twins; Travis is older.), **'she pointed towards the twins; the taller Travis, and the shorter, Connor. 'That's Clarisse La Rue, daughter of Ares,' she pointed towards the girl with stringy brown hair, 'And lastly, Chris Rodriguez, son of Hermes.' The last was Nico's ward.

The respective children's respective parents smiled at them, or in Ares' case, grunted. Poseidon, then, said,'As you guys were not there,' here, he pointed to the demigods who had been there before and Athena and Zeus, 'We were taking a break. This I think should go on; we should gather here after half an hour. If anyone wants to eat, wish for it, it will appear, unless it is a lot of food at one go.' He smiled, then flashed out. So did the other gods, except Hestia, and the campers, instead of wishing for something to eat, just requested Hestia to give them one of her home - cooked meals. She easily granted them their wishes.

The demigods had some fun after eating. They held a arm wrestling tournament, which Percy won, after a close finale with Clarisse, who became very disgruntled. Then they talked about the book. The new demigods were filled on about the events of the book which occurred till now. They were told that after explaining what was happening, where they were and all that. After some shocked silence, Travis said,' Well, Percy, we'll at least get to know what goes on inside that head of yours.' That broke the silence, as the demigods dissolved into laughter, discluding a blushing Percy.

Hestia just sat there, smiling at the demigods' antics and taking care of the hearth. They all were really like carbon copies of their parents, except for the romantic relationships. They were also much friendlier with each other, rather than their parents. Indeed, Thalia, Nico and Percy acted a lot like cousins, of course if you didn't include Thalia and Nico's relationship.

After the half an hour was up, the gods flashed back in, and Hestia got the book. She opened the marked page and started reading.

**AN – Thanks for following me for sooo long, guys, and please note that the next chapter should be up in a few hours!**

**Thanks,**

**(At last I got my fake sign done!)**


	7. Mothers who Bullfight

'**Chapter 4 – My Mother Teaches me Bull Fighting**,' Hestia read, much to the confusion of the gods.

'Wait, does that mean that your mother's becomes a bullfighter?' Apollo asked, scratching his head.

'Nope,' Poseidon said nervously. Percy sat just as nervous in his seat; he'd hear it all over again.

**We tore through the night along dark country roads. Wind slammed against the Camaro. Rain lashed the wind shield. I didn't know how my mom could see anything, but she kept her foot on the gas.**

'I like how this lady drives,' Ares approved. Clarisse stared at him in awe. He stole the words right out of her mouth. She supposed it was a parent thing.

**Every time there was a flash of lightning, I looked at Grover sitting next to me in the backseat and I wondered if I'd gone insane, or if he was wearing some kind of shag-carpet pants.**

Grover bleated in annoyance, while Percy rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. Apollo, Hermes, Connor and Travis provided background music by snickering.

**But, no, the smell was one I remembered from kindergarten field trips to the petting zoo— lanolin, like from wool. The smell of a wet barnyard animal.**

Grover looked even more annoyed, while the two gods burst into full blown laughter, until Artemis slapped them 'round the heads, that is. Connor and Travis were easily handled by Percy and Grover. Katie just held her head at her boyfriend's antics.

**All I could think to say was, "So, you and my mom... know each other?"**

'Of course you say that first,' Thalia rolled her eyes.

**Grover's eyes flitted to the rear view mirror, though there were no cars behind us. "Not exactly," he said. "I mean, we've never met in person. But she knew I was watching you."**

'STALKER!' Apollo and Hermes, this time joined by Connor and Travis, yelled, only to be slapped on the head by Artemis.

**"Watching me?"**

**"Keeping tabs on you. Making sure you were okay. But I wasn't faking being your friend," he added hastily. "I**_**am **_**your friend."**

**"Um... what**_**are **_**you, exactly?"**

**"That doesn't matter right now."**

**"It doesn't matter? From the waist down, my best friend is a donkey—"**

The rather immature people (AKA, Connor, Travis, Apollo and Hermes), again burst out into laughter, and this time Katie slapped the twins while Artemis handled the two gods; she'd been doing it since forever, after all.

**Grover let out a sharp, throaty**_**"Blaa-ha-ha!"**_

**I'd heard him make that sound before, but I'd always assumed it was a nervous laugh. Now I realized it was more of an irritated bleat.**

**"Goat!" he cried.**

**"What?"**

**"I'm a**_**goat **_**from the waist down."**

'Thus the name Goat Boy!' All demigods chorused. Grover scowled.

**"You just said it didn't matter."**

_**"Blaa-ha-ha!**_ **There are satyrs who would trample you under hoof for such an insult!"**

'If their hooves are big enough, that is,' Travis said audibly. His twin, Apollo and Hermes started snickering, while their respective handlers held their heads in exasperation and frustration.

**"Whoa. Wait. Satyrs. You mean like ... Mr. Brunner's myths?"**

**"Were those old ladies at the fruit stand a**_**myth, **_**Percy? Was Mrs. Dodds a myth?"**

'Yes, Percy,' Thalia said spookily. 'You are… living in a myth!'

**"So you**_**admit **_**there was a Mrs. Dodds!"**

The demigods all rolled their eyes together.

**"Of course."**

**"Then why—"**

**"The less you knew, the fewer monsters you'd attract," Grover said, like that should be perfectly obvious. "We put Mist over the humans' eyes. We hoped you'd think the Kindly One was a hallucination. But it was no good. You started to realize who you are."**

**"Who I—wait a minute, what do you mean?"**

'You are Percy Jackson -'Travis said.

'Son of Poseidon -'Connor continued.

'And the Hero of Olympus!' They exclaimed together.

**The weird bellowing noise rose up again somewhere behind us, closer than before. Whatever was chasing us was still on our trail.**

**"Percy," my mom said, "There's too much to explain and not enough time. We have to get you to safety."**

**"Safety from what? Who's after me?"**

'Just Kronos, dear cousin,' Nico snorted.

**"Oh, nobody much," Grover said, obviously still miffed about the donkey comment. "Just the Lord of the Dead and a few of his blood-thirstiest minions."**

'Grover!'

**"Grover!"**

Annabeth blushed red, while the rest of the demigods snickered.

**"Sorry, Mrs. Jackson. Could you drive faster, please?"**

**I tried to wrap my mind around what was happening, but I couldn't do it. I knew this wasn't a dream. I had no imagination. I could never dream up something this weird.**

'Yeah, right!' Percy scoffed. Some of the dreams he'd had were much weirder.

**My mom made a hard left. We swerved onto a narrower road, racing past darkened farmhouses and wooded hills and PICK YOUR OWN STRAWBERRIES signs on white picket fences.**

**"Where are we going?" I asked.**

**"The summer camp I told you about." My mother's voice was tight; she was trying for my sake not to be scared. "The place your father wanted to send you."**

'The place where I met you,' Percy whispered in Annabeth's ear. She blushed, which did not go unnoticed by her mother.

**"The place you didn't want me to go."**

**"Please, dear," my mother begged. "This is hard enough. Try to understand. You're in danger."**

**"Because some old ladies cut yarn."**

Poseidon paled visibly at this reminder.

**"Those weren't old ladies," Grover said. "Those were the Fates. Do you know what it means—the fact they appeared in front of you? They only do that when you're about to ... when someone's about to die."**

'Way to blow your cover, Goat Boy!' Thalia exclaimed, smacking Grover on the back of his head. The rest of the demigods nodded in agreement.

**"Whoa. You said 'you.'"**

**"No I didn't. I said 'someone.'"**

**"You meant 'you.' As in**_**me.**_**"**

**"I meant**_**you, **_**like 'someone.' Not you,**_**you.**_**"**

'Can you stop being so confusing?' Chris said, speaking for the first time since they started reading the chapter.

**"Boys!" my mom said.**

'_Thank_ you!' Artemis exclaimed.

**She pulled the wheel hard to the right, and I got a glimpse of a figure she'd swerved to avoid—a dark fluttering shape now lost behind us in the storm.**

'What is that?' Poseidon asked nervously.

**"What was that?" I asked.**

**"We're almost there," my mother said, ignoring my question.** **"Another mile. Please. Please. Please."**

Poseidon continued to chant 'Please' again and again.

**I didn't know where**_**there **_**was, but I found myself leaning forward in the car, anticipating, wanting us to arrive.**

**Outside, nothing but rain and darkness—the kind of empty countryside you get way out on the tip of Long Island. I thought about Mrs. Dodds and the moment when she'd changed into the thing with pointed teeth and leathery wings. My limbs went numb from delayed shock. She really**_**hadn't **_**been human. She'd meant to kill me.**

'And you think we call you slow for no reason,' Clarisse rolled her eyes.

**Then I thought about Mr. Brunner ... and the sword he had thrown me. Before I could ask Grover about that, the hair rose on the back of my neck. There was a blinding flash, a jaw-rattling**_**boom!, **_**and our car exploded.**

Poseidon nearly jumped out of his throne in nervousness.

**I remember feeling weightless, like I was being crushed, fried, and hosed down all at the same time.**

**I peeled my forehead off the back of the driver's seat and said, "Ow."**

**"Percy!" my mom shouted.**

**"I'm okay..."**

**I tried to shake off the daze. I wasn't dead. The car hadn't really exploded. We'd swerved into a ditch. Our driver's-side doors were wedged in the mud. The roof had cracked open like an eggshell and rain was pouring in.**

**Lightning.**

Poseidon glared at Zeus, who tried to look inconspitious.

**That was the only explanation. We'd been blasted right off the road. Next to me in the backseat was a big motionless lump. "Grover!"**

The demigods, minus Clarisse, though she looked worried, gasped.

**He was slumped over, blood trickling from the side of his mouth. I shook his furry hip, thinking, No! Even if you are half barnyard animal, you're my best friend and I don't want you to die!**

'Awwwww!' Hera, Hestia and Aphrodite cooed.

**Then he groaned "Food," and I knew there was hope.**

'The way to a man's heart is through his stomach,' Annabeth said wisely.

**"Percy," my mother said, "we have to ..." Her voice faltered.**

**I looked back. In a flash of lightning, through the mud-spattered rear windshield, I saw a figure lumbering toward us on the shoulder of the road. The sight of it made my skin crawl. It was a dark silhouette of a huge guy, like a football player. He seemed to be holding a blanket over his head. His top half was bulky and fuzzy. His upraised hands made it look like he had horns.**

'Uh oh,' Poseidon said.

**I swallowed hard. "Who is—"**

**"Percy," my mother said, deadly serious. "Get out of the car."**

**My mother threw herself against the driver's-side door. It was jammed shut in the mud. I tried mine. Stuck too. I looked up desperately at the hole in the roof. It might've been an exit, but the edges were sizzling and smoking.**

**"Climb out the passenger's side!" my mother told me. "Percy—you have to run. Do you see that big tree?"**

_**"What?"**_

**Another flash of lightning, and through the smoking hole in the roof I saw the tree she meant: a huge, White House Christmas tree-sized pine at the crest of the nearest hill.**

'Me!' Thalia yelled sarcastically.

**"That's the property line," my mom said. "Get over that hill and you'll see a big farmhouse down in the valley. Run and don't look back. Yell for help. Don't stop until you reach the door."**

**"Mom, you're coming too."**

Hera felt happy that at least there was one boy who respected his mother.

**Her face was pale, her eyes as sad as when she looked at the ocean.**

**"No!" I shouted. "You**_**are **_**coming with me. Help me carry Grover."**

The goddesses looked impressed.

**"Food!" Grover moaned, a little louder.**

**The man with the blanket on his head**

'He didn't carry the blanket on his head,' Annabeth muttered. Percy gave her a kiss to pacify her.

**kept coming toward us, making his grunting, snorting noises. As he got closer, I realized he**_**couldn't **_**be holding a blanket over his head,**

'He didn't,' Annabeth muttered again. Percy gave her another kiss.

**because his hands—huge meaty hands—were swinging at his sides. There was no blanket. Meaning the bulky, fuzzy mass that was too big to be his head ... was his head. And the points that looked like horns …**

'What!' Poseidon yelled. 'You sent the Minotaur after my son!' It seemed like a repeat telecast of the Fury episode.

**"He doesn't want**_**us**_**," my mother told me. "He wants**_**you. **_**Besides, I can't cross the property line."**

**"But..."**

**"We don't have time, Percy. Go. Please."**

**I got mad, then—mad at my mother, at Grover the goat,**

'I'm half goat!' Grover huffed, making the demigods laugh.

**at the thing with horns that was lumbering toward us slowly and deliberately like, like a bull.**

**I climbed across Grover and pushed the door open into the rain. "We're going together. Come on, Mom."**

The goddesses were even more impressed.

**"I told you—"**

**"Mom! I am not leaving you. Help me with Grover."**

'You really love your mom, don't you?' Hera asked sweetly.

**I didn't wait for her answer. I scrambled outside, dragging Grover from the car. He was surprisingly light, but I couldn't have carried him very far if my mom hadn't come to my aid.**

**Together, we draped Grover's arms over our shoulders and started stumbling uphill through wet waist-high grass.**

'Somebody should cut the grass,' Demeter mused.

**Glancing back, I got my first clear look at the monster. He was seven feet tall, easy, his arms and legs like something from the cover of **_**Muscle Man **_**magazine—bulging biceps and triceps and a bunch of other 'ceps, all stuffed like baseballs under vein-webbed skin. He wore no clothes except under-wear**

'If it's something funny, I'm gonna laugh so bad that you wouldn't be able to read further,' Hermes gasped, shaking with laughter. Apollo and the twins nodded in agreement.

**I mean, bright white Fruit of the Looms**—**which would've looked funny,**

'Which it is!' Hermes said, bursting into laughter and was joined be Apollo and the twins.

**except that the top half of his body was so scary. Coarse brown hair started at about his belly button and got thicker as it reached his shoulders.**

'Okay that's not funny,' Hermes said, calming down and looking grave. Apollo and the twins followed suit.

**His neck was a mass of muscle and fur leading up to his enormous head, which had a snout as long as my arm, snotty nostrils with a gleaming brass ring, cruel black eyes, and horns—enormous black-and-white horns with points you just couldn't get from an electric sharpener.**

'You think of the weirdest things at the weirdest time,' Thalia said, looking like she was going to cry while Nico held her. Percy was like both her and Nico's brother. The gods and goddesses looked surprise. How could the children of the Big Three be so very close?

**I recognized the monster, all right. He had been in one of the first stories Mr. Brunner told us. But he couldn't be real.**

**I blinked the rain out of my eyes. "That's—"**

**"Pasiphae's son," my mother said.**

Athena looked impressed.

**"I wish I'd known how badly they want to kill you."**

**"But he's the Min—"**

**"Don't say his name," she warned. "Names have power."**

'How can such a noble lady fall in love with _that_?' Athena said snidely, throwing a dirty look at Poseidon.

**The pine tree was still way too far—a hundred yards uphill at least.**

**I glanced behind me again.**

**The bull-man hunched over our car, looking in the windows—or not looking, exactly. More like snuffling, nuzzling. I wasn't sure why he bothered, since we were only about fifty feet away.**

'He can't see and hear right, Seaweed Brain!' Annabeth exclaimed.

'I know that now, Wise Girl!' Percy said. 'I didn't know that the gods existed at that time!'

**"Food?" Grover moaned.**

**"Shhh," I told him. "Mom, what's he doing? Doesn't he see us?"**

'I know he can't properly, okay!' Percy exclaimed when Annabeth and Athena started to open their mouths.

**"His sight and hearing are terrible," she said. "He goes by smell. But he'll figure out where we are soon enough."**

Athena looked really mightily impressed now.

**As if on cue, the bull-man bellowed in rage. He picked up Gabe's Camaro by the torn roof, the chassis creaking and groaning. He raised the car over his head and threw it down the road. It slammed into the wet asphalt and skidded in a shower of sparks for about half a mile before coming to a stop. The gas tank exploded.**

_**Not a scratch, **_**I remembered Gabe saying.**

'Oops,' Nico and the twins laughed.

**Oops.**

'Oh no!' Nico groaned while the twins snickered.

**"Percy," my mom said. "When he sees us, he'll charge. Wait until the last second, then jump out of the way— directly sideways. He can't change directions very well once he's charging. Do you understand?"**

'She should give the monster class at camp!' Athena declared, while the rest of the immortals nodded in agreement.

Poseidon and Percy grinned at each other, though Percy a bit nervously.

**"How do you know all this?"**

**"I've been worried about an attack for a long time. I should have expected this. I was selfish, keeping you near me."**

'She isn't selfish at all!' Annabeth and Thalia cried.

**"Keeping me near you? But—"**

**Another bellow of rage, and the bull-man started tromping uphill.**

**He'd smelled us.**

Poseidon started chewing his nails.

**The pine tree was only a few more yards, but the hill was getting steeper and slicker, and Grover wasn't getting any lighter. The bull-man closed in. Another few seconds and he'd be on top of us. My mother must've been exhausted, but she shouldered Grover. "Go, Percy! Separate! Remember what I said."**

**I didn't want to split up, but I had the feeling she was right—it was our only chance. I sprinted to the left, turned, and saw the creature bearing down on me. His black eyes glowed with hate. He reeked like rotten meat.**

Aphrodite crinkled her nose, the rest of the goddesses following suit.

**He lowered his head and charged, those razor-sharp horns aimed straight at my chest.**

**The fear in my stomach made me want to bolt, but that wouldn't work. I could never outrun this thing.**

**So I held my ground, and at the last moment, I jumped to the side.**

'Point to Percy!' Clarisse yelled, then quieted down when the other demigods stared at her.

**The bull-man stormed past like a freight train, then bellowed with frustration and turned, but not toward me this time, toward my mother, who was setting Grover down in the grass.**

**We'd reached the crest of the hill. Down the other side I could see a valley, just as my mother had said, and the lights of a farmhouse glowing yellow through the rain. But that was half a mile away. We'd never make it.**

'Stop being pessimistic!' Thalia yelled. 'One day it's going to kill you!'

**The bull-man grunted, pawing the ground. He kept eying my mother, who was now retreating slowly downhill, back toward the road, trying to lead the monster away from Grover.**

**"Run, Percy!" she told me. "I can't go any farther. Run!"**

**But I just stood there, frozen in fear, as the monster charged her. She tried to sidestep, as she'd told me to do, but the monster had learned his lesson. His hand shot out and grabbed her by the neck as she tried to get away. He lifted her as she struggled, kicking and pummeling the air.**

'No!' Poseidon yelled.

**"Mom!"**

**She caught my eyes, managed to choke out one last word: "Go!"**

**Then, with an angry roar, the monster closed his fists around my mother's neck, and she dissolved before my eyes, melting into light, a shimmering golden form, as if she were a holographic projection. A blinding flash, and she was simply ... gone.**

Poseidon had to be held back by the other gods to stop him from pouncing on Hades.

**"No!"**

**Anger replaced my fear. Newfound strength burned in my limbs—the same rush of energy I'd gotten when Mrs. Dodds grew talons.**

'Ass – kicking Percy back in mode!' Nico and Thalia yelled, and high-fived each other.

**The bull-man bore down on Grover, who lay helpless in the grass. The monster hunched over, snuffling my best friend, as if he were about to lift Grover up and make him dissolve too.**

**I couldn't allow that.**

The goddesses were astonished by the amount of loyalty this hero showed.

**I stripped off my red rain jacket.**

**"Hey!" I screamed, waving the jacket, running to one side of the monster. "Hey, stupid! Ground beef!"**

'You have to come up with better insults, Prissy!' Clarisse growled.

**"Raaaarrrrr!" The monster turned toward me, shaking his meaty fists.**

**I had an idea**

'Uh oh,' Nico said.

—**a stupid idea,**

'Double uh oh!'

**but better than no idea at all.**

'True!'

**I put my back to the big pine tree and waved my red jacket in front of the bull-man, thinking I'd jump out of the way at the last moment.**

**But it didn't happen like that.**

'Of course it didn't,' Annabeth sighed.

**The bull-man charged too fast, his arms out to grab me whichever way I tried to dodge.**

**Time slowed down.**

'Not literally,' Percy said quickly as the gods exchanged worried looks.

'At least, not yet,' He added under his breath when it calmed down.

**My legs tensed. I couldn't jump sideways, so I leaped straight up, kicking off from the creature's head, using it as a springboard, turning in midair, and landing on his neck.**

The occupants of the room stared at Percy in awe.

**How did I do that?**

'That's what we want to know!' Nico said in awe.

**I didn't have time to figure it out. A millisecond later, the monster's head slammed into the tree and the impact nearly knocked my teeth out.**

'I felt that, you know!' Thalia exclaimed, rubbing her chest, where she felt the hit. Nico put his arm around her in a comforting manner.

**The bull-man staggered around, trying to shake me. I locked my arms around his horns to keep from being thrown. Thunder and lightning were still going strong. The rain was in my eyes. The smell of rotten meat burned my nostrils.**

All the people looked worriedly at Percy, wondering how he survived.

**The monster shook himself around and bucked like a rodeo bull. He should have just backed up into the tree and smashed me flat, but I was starting to realize that this thing had only one gear: forward.**

'Now you realize it!' Annabeth groaned.

**Meanwhile, Grover started groaning in the grass. I wanted to yell at him to shut up, but the way I was getting tossed around, if I opened my mouth I'd bite my own tongue off.**

**"Food!" Grover moaned.**

**The bull-man wheeled toward him, pawed the ground again, and got ready to charge. I thought about how he had squeezed the life out of my mother, made her disappear in a flash of light, and rage filled me like high-octane fuel. I got both hands around one horn and I pulled backward with all my might.**

'Not gonna happen, kid,' Ares grunted.

**The monster tensed, gave a surprised grunt, then—**_**snap!**_

'You were saying?' Percy smiled smugly at Ares, who looked thunderstruck.

**The bull-man screamed and flung me through the air. I landed flat on my back in the grass. My head smacked against a rock. When I sat up, my vision was blurry, but I had a horn in my hands, a ragged bone weapon the size of a knife.**

'So that's on your cabin wall?' Nico asked casually. Percy nodded.

**The monster charged.**

**Without thinking, I rolled to one side and came up kneeling. As the monster barreled past, I drove the broken horn straight into his side, right up under his furry rib cage.**

The gods stared at Percy in awe.

'You defeated the Minotaur at 12 without any training?' Hermes asked, barely above a whisper.

Percy nodded.

**The bull-man roared in agony. He flailed, clawing at his chest, then began to disintegrate—not like my mother, in a flash of golden light, but like crumbling sand, blown away in chunks by the wind, the same way Mrs. Dodds had burst apart.**

'Because they are monsters!' Thalia said.

**The monster was gone.**

**The rain had stopped. The storm still rumbled, but only in the distance. I smelled like livestock and my knees were shaking. My head felt like it was splitting open.**

'I should think so,' Chris said, speaking after quite some time. 'You battled your first two monsters at 12, and both at an untrained stage.'

**I was weak and scared and trembling with grief. I'd just seen my mother vanish. I wanted to lie down and cry, but there was Grover, needing my help, so I managed to haul him up and stagger down into the valley, toward the lights of the farm house. I was crying, calling for my mother, but I held on to Grover—I wasn't going to let him go.**

The goddesses cooed at his loyalty. Percy blushed red.

**The last thing I remember is collapsing on a wooden porch, looking up at a ceiling fan circling above me, moths flying around a yellow light, and the stern faces of a familiar-looking bearded man and a pretty girl, her blond hair curled like a princess's.**

Annabeth blushed while the twins wolf-whistled. She shot them a death glare, which shut them up.

**They both looked down at me, and the girl said, "He's the one. He must be."**

'Oh, that he is,' Thalia said, waggling her eyebrows.

'At that time, he was my ticket to my quest. Or in other words, the Underworld!' Annabeth protested.

'I feel the love out here,' Percy muttered, to which Annabeth gave him a kiss.

'Wait a minute! _Underworld_?' Athena asked incredulously. 'You went to the Underworld?'

'No Mom, Percy is just so prone to accidents, he is going to land up in the Underworld someday,' Annabeth explained. Though it was partially right, it wasn't the complete truth.

**"Silence, Annabeth," the man said. "He's still conscious. Bring him in****side.****"**

'Chapter over. Who next?' Hestia concluded, holding out the book after she finished marking the page.

'I will!' Thalia said, and the book sailed over to her. She opened the book and cleared her throat, then started reading.


	8. Do Horses Play Pinochle?

'**Chapter 5 – I Play Pinochle with a Horse**,' Thalia said, much to the amusement of the gods.

'I doubt Chiron will like that description,' Hermes chuckled.

**I had weird dreams full of barnyard animals. Most of them wanted to kill me. The rest wanted food.**

'Weird dreams you have, Percy,' Apollo said, while Hermes guffawed next to him.

**I must've woken up several times, but what I heard and saw made no sense, so I just passed out again. I remember lying in a soft bed, being spoon-fed something that tasted like buttered popcorn, only it was pudding. The girl with curly blond hair hovered over me, smirking as she scraped drips off my chin with the spoon.**

Annabeth blushed as the demigods and Grover burst into either hearty laughs or giggles. Percy was the only one who didn't as he too blushed. He leaned over and kissed her on the cheek.

**When she saw my eyes open, she asked, "What will happen at the summer solstice?"**

'Come on Annabeth, you know Kelp Head doesn't know anything!' Thalia peered over the book, looking extraordinarily like Dumbledore from Harry Potter. Except she wasn't wearing glasses.

**I managed to croak, "What?"**

**She looked around, as if afraid someone would over hear. "What's going on? What was stolen? We've only got a few weeks!"**

**"I'm sorry," I mumbled, "I don't..."**

'Point proven!' Thalia exclaimed.

**Somebody knocked on the door, and the girl quickly filled my mouth with pudding.**

'Nice way to shut him up,' Nico snickered.

**The next time I woke up, the girl was gone.**

'Miss her already, huh?' This one surprisingly came from Chris. Though we shouldn't be very surprised, he was a son of Hermes after all.

**A husky blond dude, like a surfer, stood in the corner of the bedroom keeping watch over me. He had blue eyes- at least a dozen of them- on his cheeks, his forehead, and the backs of his hands.**

'Argus,' Clarisse grunted. She respected him because he helped the Ares cabin during a small attack which occurred at Camp during the Battle of Manhattan.

**When I finally came around for good, there was nothing weird about my surroundings, except that they were nicer than I was used to. I was sitting in a deck chair on a huge porch, gazing across a meadow at green hills in the distance. The breeze smelled like strawberries.**

Travis sighed. He really liked strawberries. After all, they were the reason he was with Katie**(AN – This will be mentioned in the new story I'll be working on soon. How Travis and Katie got together will be the theme).**

**There was a blanket over my legs, a pillow behind my neck. All that was great, but my mouth felt like a scorpion had been using it for a nest. My tongue was dry and nasty and every one of my teeth hurt.**

The twins and Katie winced. That had got to hurt.

**On the table next to me was a tall drink. It looked like iced apple juice, with a green straw and a paper parasol stuck through a maraschino cherry. My hand was so weak I almost dropped the glass once I got my fingers around it."Careful," a familiar voice said. Grover was leaning against the porch railing, looking like he hadn't slept in a week.**

'No, that was only two,' Grover corrected.

**Under one arm, he cradled a shoe box. He was wearing blue jeans, Converse hi-tops and a bright orange T-shirt that said CAMP HALF-BLOOD. Just plain old Grover. Not the goat boy.**

'Not you too!' Grover huffed.

**So maybe I'd had a nightmare. Maybe my mom was okay. We were still on vacation, and we'd stopped here at this big house for some reason. And..."You saved my life," Grover said. "I... well, the least I could do ... I went back to the hill. I thought you might want this." Reverently, he placed the shoe box in my lap.**

**Inside was a black-and-white bull's horn, the base jagged from being broken off, the tip splattered with dried blood. It hadn't been a nightmare.**

Annabeth squeezed Percy's hand. She knew how he felt.

**"The Minotaur," I said.**

**"Urn, Percy, it isn't a good idea-" "That's what they call him in the Greek myths, isn't it?" I demanded. "The Minotaur. Half man, half bull."**

Athena huffed. 'You're certainly not as smart as your mother!'

**Grover shifted uncomfortably. "You've been out for two days. How much do you remember?" "My mom. Is she really ..." He looked down.**

**I stared across the meadow. There were groves of trees, a winding stream, acres of strawberries spread out under the blue sky. The valley was surrounded by rolling hills, and the tallest one, directly in front of us, was the one with the huge pine tree on top. Even that looked beautiful in the sunlight.**

'I'm beautiful?' Thalia blinked. 'Thank you!'

Nico glared at Percy in a joking manner.

**My mother was gone. The whole world should be black and cold. Nothing should look beautiful.**

Most of the goddesses sniffed.

**"I'm sorry," Grover sniffled. "I'm a failure. I'm- I'm the worst satyr in the world**

**He moaned, stomping his foot so hard it came off. I mean, the Converse hi-top came off. The inside was filled with Styrofoam, except for a hoof-shaped hole.**

**"Oh, Styx!" he mumbled.**

**Thunder rolled across the clear sky.**

**As he struggled to get his hoof back in the fake foot, I thought, Well, that settles it.** **Grover was a satyr. I was ready to bet that if I shaved his curly brown hair, I'd find tiny horns on his head.**

'Not my hair!' Grover grabbed his head.

**But I was too miserable to care that satyrs existed, or even Minotaurs. All that meant was my mom really had been squeezed into nothingness, dissolved into yellow light.**

**I was alone. An orphan. I would have to live with ... Smelly Gabe?**

'I don't – and won't - permit it!' Poseidon growled.

**No. That would never happen. I would live on the streets first. I would pretend I was seventeen and join the army. I'd do something.**

'You can't join the army, kid,' Ares grunted. Percy rolled his eyes.

'I'll have you know I _led_ an army when I was almost sixteen!'

The gods blanched.

**Grover was still sniffling. The poor kid- poor goat, satyr, whatever- looked as if he expected to be hit.**

'I'll never hit you, Grover!' Percy said, slinging his arm around Grover. 'You're my best friend!'

'What about me?' Nico pouted.

'You don't count,' Percy told him. 'You're my cousin.'

Nico pouted some more.

**I said, "It wasn't your fault."**

**"Yes, it was. I was supposed to **_**protect **_**you."**

**"Did my mother ask you to protect me?"**

**"No. But that's my job. I'm a keeper. At least... I was."**

'You still are,' Percy told him. 'You help to find demigods!'

**"But why ..." I suddenly felt dizzy, my vision swimming.**

**"Don't strain yourself," Grover said. "Here." He helped me hold my glass and put the straw to my lips.**

**I recoiled at the taste, because I was expecting apple juice. It wasn't that at all. It was chocolate-chip cookies. Liquid cookies.**

'Yum!' Hermes gasped

**And not just any cookies- my mom's homemade blue chocolate-chip cookies, buttery and hot, with the chips still melting.**

'Double yum!' Hermes gasped again.

**Drinking it, my whole body felt warm and good, full of energy. My grief didn't go away, but I felt as if my mom had just brushed her hand against my cheek, given me a cookie the way she used to when I was small, and told me everything was going to be okay.**

All the goddesses cooed.

**Before I knew it, I'd drained the glass. I stared into it, sure I'd just had a warm drink, but the ice cubes hadn't even melted.**

'It's weird how nectar works,' Apollo nodded.

**"Was it good?" Grover asked.**

**I nodded.**

**"What did it taste like?" He sounded so wistful, I felt guilty.**

**"Sorry," I said. "I should've let you taste."**

'You shouldn't,' Athena told him. 'He'd vaporize.'

'I know that now!' Percy rolled his eyes.

**His eyes got wide. "No! That's not what I meant. I just... wondered."**

**"Chocolate-chip cookies," I said. "My mom's. Homemade."**

'I love them!' Nico exclaimed. Thalia, Annabeth and Percy nodded.

**He sighed. "And how do you feel?"**

**"Like I could throw Nancy Bobofit a hundred yards."**

**"That's good," he said. "That's good. I don't think you could risk drinking any more of that stuff."**

**"What do you mean?"**

**He took the empty glass from me gingerly, as if it were dynamite, and set it back on the table. "Come on. Chiron and Mr. D are waiting."**

'Hate him,' Percy whispered to the demigods. They instantly knew who he was talking about.

**The porch wrapped all the way around the farmhouse.**

**My legs felt wobbly, trying to walk that far. Grover offered to carry the Minotaur horn, but I held on to it. I'd paid for that souvenir the hard way. I wasn't going to let it go.**

Annabeth smiled sadly and in understanding.

**As we came around the opposite end of the house, I caught my breath.**

'It is beautiful, isn't it?' Artemis smiled.

**We must've been on the north shore of Long Island, because on this side of the house, the valley marched all the way up to the water, which glittered about a mile in the distance. Between here and there, I simply couldn't process everything I was seeing. The landscape was dotted with buildings that looked like ancient Greek architecture -**

'Because that's what it is, Seaweed Brain!' Annabeth rolled her eyes.

**an open-air pavilion, an amphitheater, a circular arena except that they all looked brand new, their white marble columns sparkling in the sun. In a nearby sandpit, a dozen high school-age kids and satyrs played volleyball. Canoes glided across a small lake. Kids in bright orange T-shirts like Grover's were chasing each other around a cluster of cabins nestled in the woods. Some shot targets at an archery range. Others rode horses down a wooded trail, and, unless I was hallucinating, some of their horses had wings.**

'I can't believe that I didn't believe in Pegasi then,' Percy sighed.

**Down at the end of the porch, two men sat across from each other at a card table. The blond-haired girl who'd spoon-fed me popcorn-flavored pudding was leaning on the porch rail next to them.**

**The man facing me was small, but porky.**

Grover and the demigods all burst into laughter knowing exactly who was being talked about.

**He had a red nose, big watery eyes, and curly hair so black it was almost purple. He looked like those paintings of baby angels- what do you call them, hubbubs? No, cherubs. That's it. He looked like a cherub who'd turned middle-aged in a trailer park. He wore a tiger-pattern Hawaiian shirt, and he would've fit right in at one of Gabe's poker parties, except I got the feeling this guy could've out-gambled even my step father.**

The gods discluding Dionysus joined in the laughter; he was reading a wine magazine and didn't even know he was being laughed at.

**"That's Mr. D," Grover murmured to me. "He's the camp director. Be polite.**

'Why should I be polite if he can't?' Percy muttered.

**The girl, that's Annabeth Chase. She's just a camper,**

'Just a camper?' Annabeth asked Grover, her eyes flashing.

Grover gulped and said, 'Um… there's more.'

**but she's been here longer than just about anybody.**

'Good!' satisfied, Annabeth settled back into Percy's arms.

**And you already know Chiron..."**

'Of course I do! He's been my mentor since a long time!'

**He pointed at the guy whose back was to me.**

**First, I realized he was sitting in the wheelchair. Then I recognized the tweed jacket, the thinning brown hair, the scraggly beard.**

**"Mr. Brunner!" I cried.**

'Oh, quit it Prissy!' Clarisse sighed, rubbing her eyes and yawning.

**The Latin teacher turned and smiled at me. His eyes had that mischievous glint they sometimes got in class when he pulled a pop quiz and made all the multiple choice answers **_**B**_**.**

'Chiron should teach me!' Apollo whined. Hermes nodded, looking enviously at his children, who (including Chris) stuck their tongues out at him.

**"Ah, good, Percy," he said. "Now we have four for pinochle."**

'I hate that game!' Percy exclaimed.

**He offered me a chair to the right of Mr. D, who looked at me with bloodshot eyes and heaved a great sigh. "Oh, I suppose I must say it. Welcome to Camp Half-Blood. There. Now, don't expect me to be glad to see you."**

**"Uh, thanks." I scooted a little farther away from him because, **_**if **_**there was one thing I had learned from living with Gabe, it was how to tell when an adult has been hitting the happy juice. If Mr. D was a stranger to alcohol, I was a satyr.**

The throne room, minus Dionysus, burst out laughing (exceptions being the goddesses).

**"Annabeth?" Mr. Brunner called to the blond girl.**

'**Oh so I'm the blonde girl?' Annabeth crossed her arms at Percy.**

'Um…' Being unable to think of anything, he just shrugged sheepishly.

**She came forward and Mr. Brunner introduced us. "This young lady nursed you back to health, Percy. Annabeth, my dear, why don't you go check on Percy's bunk? We'll be putting him in cabin eleven for now."**

**Annabeth said, "Sure, Chiron."**

**She was probably my age, maybe a couple of inches taller, and a whole lot more athletic looking.**

Annabeth smiled smugly at him, who just rolled his eyes.

**With her deep tan and her curly blond hair, she was almost exactly what I thought a stereotypical California girl would look like, except her eyes ruined the image.**

'What do you mean, ruined?' Annabeth questioned, her arms on her hips.

'Well, I meant it like… it didn't go with the Californian girl look,' Percy said, trying to slide out of Annabeth's glare.

They were startling gray, like storm clouds; pretty,

Annabeth kissed Percy. When they pulled out, she said, 'That's for calling my eyes pretty.

**but intimidating, too, as if she were analyzing the best way to take me down in a fight.**

'How did you know?' Annabeth asked in astonishment.

'See, I knew you very well even then,' Percy replied smugly.

**She glanced at the Minotaur horn in my hands, then back at me. I imagined she was going to say, **_**You killed a minotaur! **_**Or **_**Wow, you're so awesome! **_**or something like that.**

'No way! That would inflate your ego way too much!' Annabeth said. Percy pouted, that is, until Annabeth kissed him.

**Instead she said, "You drool when you sleep."**

The throne room was filled with laughter while Percy tried to hide his blushing face in his hands.

**Then she sprinted off down the lawn, her blond hair flying behind her.**

Annabeth raised her eyebrows at Percy while the others laughed.

**"So," I said, anxious to change the subject. "You, uh, work here, Mr. Brunner?"**

**"Not Mr. Brunner," the ex-Mr. Brunner said. "I'm afraid that was a pseudonym.**

'What's a pseudonym?' Clarisse asked. She knew the answer, but she was sleepy, and the lecture which Annabeth or Athena would give would be enough for her to take a nap. Reading books does make you sleepy.

Athena gasped and started explaining the meaning. Her lecture went on for two hours, after which only Annabeth was awake and listening raptly (she was even taking notes!). After poking everybody awake (Clarisse wasn't too happy), Thalia continued reading.

**You may call me Chiron."**

**"Okay." Totally confused, I looked at the director. "And Mr. D ... does that stand for something?"**

'Idiot!' Thalia said, hitting Percy on the head. Percy glared at her, but she didn't back away though she was a bit intimidated (learning from a wolf has it's perks).

**Mr. D stopped shuffling the cards. He looked at me like I'd just belched loudly. "Young man, names are powerful things. You don't just go around using them for no reason."**

**"Oh. Right. Sorry."**

**"I must say, Percy," Chiron-Brunner broke in, "I'm glad to see you alive. It's been a long time since I've made a house call to a potential camper. I'd hate to think I've wasted my time."**

'You haven't,' Katie smiled. The other demigods and Grover agreed, Clarisse a trifle reluctantly.

**"House call?"**

**"My year at Yancy Academy, to instruct you. We have satyrs at most schools, of course, keeping a lookout. But Grover alerted me as soon as he met you. He sensed you were something special, so I decided to come upstate. I convinced the other Latin teacher to ... ah, take a leave of absence."**

'Chiron's a sly dog,' Hermes grinned.

'Horse,' Apollo corrected.

**I tried to remember the beginning of the school year. It seemed like so long ago, but I did have a fuzzy memory of there being another Latin teacher my first week at Yancy. Then, without explanation, he had disappeared and Mr. Brunner had taken the class.**

**"You came to Yancy just to teach me?" I asked.**

'And his ego inflates,' Nico sighed dramatically.

**Chiron nodded. "Honestly, I wasn't sure about you at first.** **We contacted your mother, let her know we were keeping an eye on you in case you were ready for Camp Half-Blood. But you still had so much to learn. Nevertheless, you made it here alive, and that's always the first test.**

'Which Thalia failed,' Connor muttered, having no wish to be electrocuted, but wanting to make the comment.

**"Grover," Mr. D said impatiently. "Are you playing or not?"**

**"Yes, sir!" Grover trembled as he took the fourth chair, though I didn't know why he should be so afraid of a pudgy little man in a tiger-print Hawaiian shirt.**

Everybody started again laughing.

**"You **_**do **_**know how to play pinochle?" Mr. D eyed me suspiciously.**

**"I'm afraid not," I said.**

**"I'm afraid not, **_**sir**_**," he said.**

**"Sir," I repeated. I was liking the camp director less and less.**

'What's there to like?' Thalia asked Percy in an undertone.

**"Well," he told me, "it is, along with gladiator fighting and Pac-Man, one of the greatest games ever invented by humans. I would expect all **_**civilized **_**young men to know the rules."**

**The camp director dealt the cards. Grover flinched every time one landed in his pile.**

**Chiron smiled at me sympathetically, the way he used to in Latin class, as if to let me know that no matter what my average was, **_**I **_**was his star student. He expected **_**me **_**to have the right answer.**

'Which I don't have, yeah, yeah, now can you please shut up?'

**"Percy," he said. "Did your mother tell you nothing?'**

**"She said ..." I remembered her sad eyes, looking out over the sea. "She told me she was afraid to send me here, even though my father had wanted her to. She said that once I was here, I probably couldn't leave. She wanted to keep me close to her."**

**"Typical," Mr. D said. "That's how they usually get killed. Young man, are you bidding or not?"**

'Can he be any more insensitive?' Artemis muttered. She did not respect Percy yet, but disliked Dionysus heartily.

**"What?" I asked.**

**He explained, impatiently, how you bid in pinochle, and so I did.**

**"I'm afraid there's too much to tell," Chiron said. "I'm afraid our usual orientation film won't be sufficient."**

'You never saw it?' Nico gasped. 'It was amazing!'

**"Orientation film?" I asked.**

**"No," Chiron decided. "Well, Percy. You know your friend Grover is a satyr. You know-" he pointed to the horn in the shoe box- "that you have killed the Minotaur. No small feat, either, lad. What you may not know is that great powers are at work in your life. Gods- the forces you call the Greek gods- are very much alive."**

**I stared at the others around the table.**

'It was pretty hard to understand at first,' Katie nodded, having choked on the water she had been drinking.

**I waited for somebody to yell, **_**Not! **_**But all I got was Mr. D yelling, "Oh, a royal marriage. Trick! Trick!" He cackled as he tallied up his points.**

**"Mr. D," Grover asked timidly, "if you're not going to eat it, could I have your Diet Coke can?"**

**"Eh? Oh, all right."**

**Grover bit a huge shard out of the empty aluminum can and chewed it mournfully.**

'Didn't you find that weird?' Travis asked, scratching his head.

'I did, but I didn't say anything,' Percy replied.

**"Wait," I told Chiron. "You're telling me there's such a thing as God."**

**"Well, now," Chiron said. "God - capital **_**G**_**, God. That's a different matter altogether. We shan't deal with the metaphysical."**

**"Metaphysical? But you were just talking about-"**

**"Ah, gods, plural, as in, great beings that control the forces of nature and human endeavors: the immortal gods of Olympus. That's a smaller matter."**

'Smaller?' The gods boomed in anger. Chiron was lucky to not be there.

**"Smaller?"**

'Thank you,' Poseidon told his son, who nodded in reply.

**"Yes, quite. The gods we discussed in Latin class."**

**"Zeus," I said. "Hera. Apollo. You mean them."**

**And there it was again-distant thunder on a cloud less day.**

'Zeus makes it _rain _on a cloudless day,' Poseidon muttered. Zeus whacked him on the back of his head.

**"Young man," said Mr. D, "I would really be less casual about throwing those names around, if I were you."**

'But you do,' Percy pointed out to the gods.

'But we are allowed to, since we don't smell like demigods,' Athena replied. Percy nodded.

**"But they're stories," I said. "They're- myths, to explain lightning and the seasons and stuff. They're what people believed before there was science."**

**"Science!" Mr. D scoffed. "And tell me, Perseus Jackson"-I flinched when he said my real name, which I never told anybody- "what will people think of your 'science' two thousand years from now?" Mr. D continued. "Hmm? They will call it primitive mumbo jumbo. That's what. Oh, I love mortals- they have absolutely no sense of perspective.**

'We do!' Clarisse said. 'We just don't use it the way you do!'

**They think they've come **_**so-o-o **_**far. And have they, Chiron? Look at this boy and tell me."**

'They have. I mean, New York didn't just pop out of nowhere,' Athena reasoned.

**I wasn't liking Mr. D much, but there was something about the way he called me mortal, as if... he wasn't.**

'He isn't,' Nico stated the obvious.

'Thank you, Captain Obvious,' Thalia rolled her eyes.

'My pleasure, Lieutenant Sarcasm,' Nico shot back.

**It was enough to put a lump in my throat, to suggest why Grover was dutifully minding his cards, chewing his soda can, and keeping his mouth shut.**

**"Percy," Chiron said, "you may choose to believe or not, but the fact is that **_**immortal **_**means immortal. Can you imagine that for a moment, never dying? Never fading? Existing, just as you are, for all time?"**

**I was about to answer, off the top of my head, that it sounded like a pretty good deal,**

'Then why did you refuse it?' Nico asked Percy in hushed tones.

'Because it wasn't worth it. Now shut up!' Percy whispered in reply.

**but the tone of Chiron's voice made me hesitate.**

'Of course it did,' Thalia muttered.

**"You mean, whether people believed in you or not," I said.**

**"Exactly," Chiron agreed. "If you were a god, how would you like being called a myth, an old story to explain lightning? What if I told you, Perseus Jackson, that someday people would call **_**you **_**a myth, just created to explain how little boys can get over losing their mothers?"**

'I have been made into a myth. Mine is in Thalia's hands. The first myth, that is,' Percy pointed out.

'But not created to explain how little boys can get over losing their mothers,' Annabeth muttered.

**My heart pounded. He was trying to make me angry for some reason, but I wasn't going to let him. I said, "I wouldn't like it. But I don't believe in gods."**

**"Oh, you'd better," Mr. D murmured. "Before one of them incinerates you."**

**Grover said, "P-please, sir. He's just lost his mother. He's in shock."**

**"A lucky thing, too," Mr. D grumbled, playing a card. "Bad enough I'm confined to this miserable job, working with boys who don't even believe.'"**

**He waved his hand and a goblet appeared on the table, as if the sunlight had bent, momentarily, and woven the air into glass. The goblet filled itself with red wine.**

'Dionysus!' Zeus yelled. Dionysus jerked away from sleep, and yelped.

'What?' He asked his father.

'Nothing, go back to sleep.'

**My jaw dropped, but Chiron hardly looked up.**

**"Mr. D," he warned, "your restrictions."**

**Mr. D looked at the wine and feigned surprise.**

**"Dear me." He looked at the sky and yelled, "Old habits! Sorry!"**

**More thunder.**

'Only he would thunder away,' Hades sighed.

**Mr. D waved his hand again, and the wineglass changed into a fresh can of Diet Coke. He sighed unhappily, popped the top of the soda, and went back to his card game.**

**Chiron winked at me. "Mr. D offended his father a while back, took a fancy to a wood nymph who had been declared off-limits."**

**"A wood nymph," I repeated, still staring at the Diet Coke can like it was from outer space.**

'It kind of is,' Athena said. 'We gods will our food to be woven from the vacuum of outer space.'

Annabeth gasped in realization, while the others looked clueless.

'Basically,' Annabeth said quickly. 'It is from outer space.'

A sigh of realization whipped through the crowd.

**"Yes," Mr. D confessed. "Father loves to punish me. The first time, Prohibition. Ghastly! Absolutely horrid ten years! The second time- well, she really was pretty, and I couldn't stay away- the second time, he sent me here. Half-Blood Hill. Summer camp for brats like you. 'Be a better influence,' he told me. 'Work with youths rather than tearing them down.' Ha.' Absolutely unfair."**

**Mr. D sounded about six years old, like a pouting little kid.**

'He is a kid,' Artemis muttered.

**"And ..." I stammered, "your father is ..."**

_**"Di immortals**_** ,Chiron," Mr. D said. "I thought you taught this boy the basics. My father is Zeus, of course."**

**I ran through D names from Greek mythology. Wine. The skin of a tiger. The satyrs that all seemed to work here. The way Grover cringed, as if Mr. D were his master.**

'Not my master, more like my boss.'

**"You're Dionysus," I said. "The god of wine."**

**Mr. D rolled his eyes. "What do they say, these days, Grover? Do the children say, 'Well, duh!'?"**

**"Y-yes, Mr. D."**

**"Then, well, duh! Percy Jackson. Did you think I was Aphrodite, perhaps?"**

'I take offence to that!' Aphrodite huffed at Dionysus who was on the verge of sleeping.

'Who knew that she knows what that word means,' Artemis whispered to Athena, and they both started to snicker.

**He turned to look at me straight on, and I saw a kind of purplish fire in his eyes, a hint that this whiny, plump little man was only showing me the tiniest bit of his true nature. I saw visions of grape vines choking unbelievers to death, drunken warriors insane with battle lust, sailors screaming as their hands turned to flippers, their faces elongating into dolphin snouts. I knew that if I pushed him, Mr. D would show me worse things. He would plant a disease in my brain that would leave me wearing a strait-jacket in a rubber room for the rest of my life.**

'If he does that, I'll kill him,' Poseidon threatened.

**"Would you like to test me, child?" he said quietly.**

**"No. No, sir."**

'Percy being polite to Dionysus? The world is ending!' Thalia yelled.

**The fire died a little. He turned back to his card game. "I believe I win."**

**"Not quite, Mr. D," Chiron said. He set down a straight, tallied the points, and said, "The game goes to me."**

**I thought Mr. D was going to vaporize Chiron right out of his wheelchair, but he just sighed through his nose, as if he were used to being beaten by the Latin teacher.**

'Yes, he is,' Apollo nodded, laughing loudly.

**He got up, and Grover rose, too.**

**"I'm tired," Mr. D said.**

**"I believe I'll take a nap before the sing-along tonight. But first, Grover, we need to talk, **_**again, **_**about your less-than-perfect performance on this assignment."**

**Grover's face beaded with sweat. "Y-yes, sir."**

**Mr. D turned to me. "Cabin eleven, Percy Jackson. And mind your manners."**

**He swept into the farmhouse, Grover following miserably.**

**"Will Grover be okay?" I asked Chiron.**

**Chiron nodded, though he looked a bit troubled. "Old Dionysus isn't really mad. He just hates his job. He's been ... ah, grounded, I guess you would say, and he can't stand waiting another century before he's allowed to go back to Olympus."**

**"Mount Olympus," I said. "You're telling me there really is a palace there?"**

**"Well now, there's Mount Olympus in Greece. And then there's the home of the gods, the convergence point of their powers, which did indeed used to be on Mount Olympus. It's still called Mount Olympus, out of respect to the old ways, but the palace moves, Percy, just as the gods do."**

**"You mean the Greek gods are here? Like ... in **_**America**_**?"**

'**Yes.'**

**"Well, certainly. The gods move with the heart of the West."**

**"The what?"**

'Can we skip the lecture?' Hermes whined.

'No,' Athena answered, while waving her hand to popcorn. When she offered it to the demigods, and they all took some, just to say that they ate space food.

**"Come now, Percy. What you call 'Western civilization.' Do you think it's just an abstract concept? No, it's a living force. A collective consciousness that has burned bright for thousands of years. The gods are part of it. You might even say they are the source of it, or at least, they are tied so tightly to it that they couldn't possibly fade, not unless all of Western civilization were obliterated. The fire started in Greece. Then, as you well know- or as I hope you know, since you passed my course- the heart of the fire moved to Rome, and so did the gods. Oh, different names, perhaps- Jupiter for Zeus, Venus for Aphrodite, and so on- but the same forces, the same gods."**

**"And then they died."**

**"Died? No. Did the West die? The gods simply moved, to Germany, to France, to Spain, for a while. Wherever the flame was brightest, the gods were there. They spent several centuries in England. All you need to do is look at the architecture.**

'That is all she does,' Thalia jerked her finger toward Annabeth. She glared at her oldest friend half-heartedly.

**People do not forget the gods. Every place they've ruled, for the last three thousand years, you can see them in paintings, in statues, on the most important buildings. And yes, Percy, of course they are now in your United States. Look at your symbol, the eagle of Zeus. Look at the statue of Prometheus in Rockefeller Center, the Greek facades of your government buildings in Washington. I defy you to find any American city where the Olympians are not prominently displayed in multiple places. Like it or not- and believe me, plenty of people weren't very fond of Rome, either**

'Of course, what is there to like?' Annabeth grit her teeth.

**- America is now the heart of the flame. It is the great power of the West. And so Olympus is here. And we are here."**

**It was all too much, especially the fact that **_**I **_**seemed to be included in Chiron's **_**we, **_**as if I were part of some club.**

'Not a club exactly,' Thalia said.

**Chiron smiled. He shifted his weight as if he were going to get up out of his wheelchair, but I knew that was impossible. He was paralyzed from the waist down.**

'**Or maybe a horse,' Clarisse grunted.**

**"Who are you?" he mused. "Well, that's the question we all want answered, isn't it? But for now, we should get you a bunk in cabin eleven. There will be new friends to 'meet. And plenty of time for lessons tomorrow. Besides, there will be toasted marshmallows at the campfire tonight, and I simply adore them."**

'Chiron is weird,' Chris said surprised.

**And then he did rise from his wheelchair. But there was something odd about the way he did it. His blanket fell away from his legs, but the legs didn't move. His waist kept getting longer, rising above his belt. At first, I thought he was wearing very long, white velvet underwear, **

'Only you,' Thalia gasped, as she doubled over. Everybody was laughing almost as much as her, and Percy was bright red.

**but as he kept rising out of the chair, taller than any man, I realized that the velvet underwear wasn't underwear; it was the front of an animal, muscle and sinew under coarse white fur. And the wheelchair wasn't a chair. It was some kind of container, an enormous box on wheels, and it must've been magic, because there's no way it could've held all of him. A leg came out, long and knobby-kneed, with a huge polished hoof. Then another front leg, then hindquarters, and then the box was empty, nothing but a metal shell with a couple of fake human legs attached.**

'I wonder where he got the fake legs from,' the twins said, chuckling.

**I stared at the horse who had just sprung from the wheelchair: a huge white stallion. But where its neck should be was the upper body of my Latin teacher, smoothly grafted to the horse's trunk.**

**"What a relief," the centaur said. "I'd been cooped up in there so long, my fetlocks had fallen asleep. Now, come, Percy Jackson. Let's meet the other campers."**

'And, it's over!' Thalia said, tired of reading. 'Who'll go next?'

'I will,' Percy said, and the book flew to him, and he opened the next chapter to read.


	9. Author's Note 2

**I'm sooooo sorry guys! I haven't updated in forever! But I have a good reason for that! My stupid exams are two days away, and I need to study hard for them. I am forced to put all my in – progress stories on temporary hiatus. I'm really sorry for that, but I promise that you'll get your updates till Christmas. And I have requests for people reading this. All my fans who like Harry Potter, please do read my story, 'The Time it all Came to be'. It tells how the Founders met, and how they made Hogwarts. Please do review it! (For my Mark of Athena goes Haywire fans, I might probably take a long time to update it. It is now on permanent hiatus; till ilovepiano12 gives me chapter 6)**

**Yours sadly,**

**Stella**


	10. Bow Before me, the Lord of the Bathroom!

**"I Become Supreme Lord of the Bathroom," **Percy read, and started chuckling, and was soon joined by most of the demigods, except Clarisse and Chris (who didn't laugh only because of his girlfriend).

**Once I got over the fact that my Latin teacher was a horse,**

'Good thing Chiron's not here, Kelp Head,' Thalia snickered.

**we had a nice tour, though I was careful not to walk behind him. I'd done pooper – scooper patrol in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade a few times, and, I'm sorry, but I did not trust Chiron's back end the way I trusted his front.**

Everyone burst into laughter, except Percy, who turned slightly red, but joined sometime later.

**We passed the volleyball pit. Several of the campers nudged each other. One pointed to the minotaur horn I was carrying. Another said, "That's**_**him**_**."**

'Who do I look like? Zeus?' Percy scoffed, while Zeus yelled, 'HEY!'

**Most of the campers were older than me. Their satyr friends were bigger than Grover, all of them trotting around in orange CAMP HALF-BLOOD T-shirts, with nothing else to cover their bare shaggy hindquarters. I wasn't normally shy,**

'Yeah, dude, you're _never_ shy, are you?' Nico was the one to scoff this time.

**but the way they stared at me made me uncomfortable. I felt like they were expecting me to do a flip or something.**

'Can you please do it?' Nico, Travis and Connor begged, and Percy complied. Katie and Thalia hit their respective boyfriends on their heads. Connor missed his girlfriend Lexia, daughter of Athena **(AN – Lexia belongs to klainebowsandpercabeth)**.

**I looked back at the farmhouse. It was a lot bigger than I'd realized - four stories tall, sky blue with white trim, like an upscale seaside resort. I was checking out the brass eagle weathervane on top when something caught my eye, a shadow in the uppermost window of the attic gable. Something had moved the curtain, just for a second, and I got the distinct impression I was being watched.**

'You couldn't have,' Athena muttered.

**"What's up there?" I asked Chiron.**

**He looked where I was pointing, and his smile faded. "Just the attic."**

'"Just the attic", my ass!' Chris exclaimed, while the others looked shocked shy Chris would say something like that.

'What?' Chris exclaimed. Everybody turned away.

**"Somebody lives there?"**

**"No," he said with finality. "Not a single living thing."**

'Not true, but true at the same time,' Thalia shivered, remembering that time when Annabeth was missing. Nico gripped her hand.

**I got the feeling he was being truthful. But I was also sure something had moved that curtain.**

'Definitely,' Percy murmured. Annabeth squeezed his hand in comfort.

**"Come along, Percy," Chiron said, his lighthearted tone now a little forced. "Lots to see."**

**We walked through the strawberry fields,**

'A son of Hermes used to be smitten with one particular strawberry, you know,' Nico sniggered.

'Just some time ago he went and took it,' Thalia laughed. The rest of the demigods and satyr joined in, while Travis and Katie just sat blushing, not joining in.

**where campers were picking bushels of berries while a satyr played a tune on a reed pipe.**

**Chiron told me the camp grew a nice crop for export to New York restaurants and Mount Olympus. "It pays our expenses," he explained. "And the strawberries take almost no effort."**

**He said Mr. D had this effect on fruit-bearing plants: they just went crazy when he was around. It worked best with wine grapes, but Mr. D was restricted from growing those,**

Dionysus grumbled about mean fathers, and Zeus singed his butt.

**so they grew strawberries instead.**

**I watched the satyr playing his pipe. His music was causing lines of bugs to leave the strawberry patch in every direction, like refugees fleeing a fire. I wondered if Grover could work that kind of magic with music.**

'Well, not at _that_ time, but now, yes,' Percy answered to his book self

**I wondered if he was still inside the farmhouse, getting chewed out by Mr. D.**

**"Grover won't get in too much trouble, will he?" I asked Chiron. "I mean ... he was a good protector. Really."**

Grover smiled sadly. 'Thanks, Percy.'

'Anytime!'

**Chiron sighed. He shed his tweed jacket and draped it over his horses back like a saddle. "Grover has big dreams, Percy. Perhaps bigger than are reasonable. To reach his goal, he must first demonstrate great courage by succeeding as a keeper, finding a new camper and bringing him safely to Half - Blood Hill."**

'But he did that!'

**"But he did that!"**

'Wow, Annabeth, you are more like Percy than we thought!'

**"I might agree with you," Chiron said. "But it is not my place to judge. Dionysus and the Council of Cloven Elders must decide. I'm afraid they might not see this assignment as a success. After all, Grover lost you in New York. Then there's the unfortunate ... ah ... fate of your mother. And the fact that Grover was unconscious when you dragged him over the property line. The council might question whether this shows any courage on Grover's part."**

'He is the bravest satyr I know!' Thalia flared up. Grover grinned at her.

**I wanted to protest. None of what happened was Grover's fault. I also felt really, really guilty.**

'You have nothing to feel guilty about, son,' Poseidon said. 'You were getting freaked out by Grover, it's understandable.'

**If I hadn't given Grover the slip at the bus station, he might not have gotten in trouble.**

**"He'll get a second chance, won't he?"**

**Chiron winced. "I'm afraid that**_**was **_**Grover's second chance, Percy. The council was not anxious to give him another, either, after what happened the first time, five years ago.**

'It was _my choice_! What part of it do you not understand?'

**Olympus knows, I advised him to wait longer before trying again. He's still so small for his age..."**

**"How old is he?"**

**"Oh, twenty-eight."**

**"What! And he's in sixth grade?"**

'Satyrs mature half as fast as humans, Percy.'

**"Satyrs mature half as fast as humans, Percy.**

'And Chiron too!'

'Nico, you better shut up or I'll gut you!'

**Grover has been the equivalent of a middle school student for the past six years."**

**"That's horrible."**

'Yeah, and you haven't even experienced it!' Grover howled. Thalia patted him between his horns and managed to shut him up so that they could continue reading.

**"Quite," Chiron agreed. "At any rate, Grover is a late bloomer, even by satyr standards, and not yet very accomplished at woodland magic. Alas, he was anxious to pursue his dream. Perhaps now he will find some other career..."**

'I will not!' Grover stood up.

'Thank the gods!' Thalia exclaimed, then continued in her softest voice so that the gods could not hear. 'I you had quit, I would have died, and if I wouldn't have, Camp would have!'

Grover nodded his thanks and sat down quickly.

**"That's not fair," I said. "What happened the first time? Was it really so bad?"**

**Chiron looked away quickly. "Let's move along, shall we?"**

**But I wasn't quite ready to let the subject drop. Something had occurred to me when Chiron talked about my mother's fate, as if he were intentionally avoiding the word**_**death**_**.**__**The beginnings of an idea—a tiny, hopeful fire—started forming in my mind.**

**"Chiron," I said. "If the gods and Olympus and all that are real ..."**

**"Yes, child?"**

**"Does that mean the Underworld is real, too?"**

**Chiron's expression darkened.**

'Well of course, don't you remember how many demigods he has seen going there? Horrible, if you ask me.'

**"Yes, child." He paused, as if choosing his words carefully. "There is a place where spirits go after death. But for now ... until we know more ... I would urge you to put that out of your mind."**

**"What do you mean, 'until we know more'?"**

**"Come, Percy. Let's see the woods."**

'The subject change we all know and love!'

**As we got closer, I realized how huge the forest was. It took up at least a quarter of the valley, with trees so tall and thick, you could imagine nobody had been in there since the Native Americans.**

'Monsters do!'

**Chiron said, "The woods are stocked, if you care to try your luck, but go armed."**

**"Stocked with what?" I asked. "Armed with what?"**

'Stocked with monsters, armed with a sword!' The twins said, as if it were obvious, which it kind of was.

**"You'll see. Capture the flag is Friday night. Do you have your own sword and shield?"**

'He must have thought that because some people end up coming to camp with weapons, like me,' Annabeth explained hastily when she saw Percy open his mouth.

**"My own—?"**

**"No," Chiron said. "I don't suppose you do. I think a size five will do. I'll visit the armory later."**

'Size five was too big; I needed three at the time. Now I need seven. Oh stop laughing, you two!' Percy snapped at the twins. 'I seem to remember you needing size two, and you'd been at Camp lot longer than me!' That shut them up.

**I wanted to ask what kind of summer camp had an armory, but there was too much else to think about, so the tour continued. We saw the archery range, the canoeing lake, the stables (which Chiron didn't seem to like very much),**

'Well duh!' Thalia rolled her eyes.

**the javelin range, the sing-along amphitheatre, and the arena where Chiron said they held sword and spear fights.**

**"Sword and spear fights?" I asked.**

**"Cabin challenges and all that," he explained. "Not lethal. Usually.**

'Usually, unless Clarisse is in class!'

**Oh, yes, and there's the mess hall."**

**Chiron pointed to an outdoor pavilion framed in white Grecian columns on a hill overlooking the sea. There were a dozen stone picnic tables. No roof. No walls.**

**"What do you do when it rains?" I asked.**

**Chiron looked at me as if I'd gone a little weird.**

**"We still have to eat, don't we?" I decided to drop the subject.**

**Finally, he showed me the cabins. There were twelve of them,**

'Increased in number now,' Connor said too softly to be heard by anyone. He may miss his girlfriend, but he'd take full advantage of her absence.

**nestled in the woods by the lake. They were arranged in a U, with two at the base and five in a row on either side. And they were without doubt the most bizarre collection of buildings I'd ever seen.**

'Bizarre!' Zeus boomed. 'It is charged with our powers, impertinent fool!'

Percy raised his eyebrows. 'I thought they were bizarre, not horrible or ugly,' He replied with ease, not as if he was not in threat of being blown up by the king of the gods. Zeus seemed like he was about to answer, but Percy overrode him and started reading.

**Except for the fact that each had a large brass number above the door (odds on the left side, evens on the right), they looked absolutely nothing alike. Number nine had smokestacks, like a tiny factory.**

Hephaestus raised his hand. When people stared at him, he said, 'Just saying (nonverbally) that that cabin is mine.'

**Number four had tomato vines on the walls and a roof made out of real grass.**

Demeter raised at her hand, but Katie said, 'Mine! I'm head counselor!'

**Seven seemed to be made of solid gold, which gleamed so much in the sunlight it was almost impossible to look at.**

Apollo jumped out of his throne. 'Mine!' He screamed excitedly. Artemis grabbed his ear and pulled him down to his seat.

**They all faced a commons area about the size of a soccer field, dotted with Greek statues, fountains, flower beds, and a couple of basketball hoops (which were more my speed).**

Nico raised his eyebrows. 'I've never seen you play,' he accused.

'When have I got the time?' Percy sighed.

**In the center of the field was a huge stone-lined fire pit. Even though it was a warm afternoon, the hearth smoldered. A girl about nine years old was tending the flames, poking the coals with a stick.**

'I'm glad you saw me,' Hestia smiled. Percy smiled back.

**The pair of cabins at the head of the field, numbers one and two, looked like his-and-hers mausoleums, big white marble boxes with heavy columns in front. Cabin one was the biggest and bulkiest of the twelve. Its polished bronze doors shimmered like a hologram, so that from different angles lightning bolts seemed to streak across them.**

'Mine!' Zeus spoke up, while Thalia said distastefully, 'I hate that cabin.' Zeus looked hurt, but hid it so his wife couldn't see.

**Cabin two was more graceful somehow, with slimmer columns garlanded with pomegranates and flowers. The walls were carved with images of peacocks.**

'Mine,' Hera said with dignity.

**"Zeus and Hera?" I guessed.**

**"Correct," Chiron said.**

**"Their cabins look empty." **

'And it should remain that way!' Zeus boomed. The Olympians, except Hera, shook their heads.

'Hypocrite,' Poseidon muttered.

**"Several of the cabins are. That's true. No one ever stays in one or two."**

**Okay. So each cabin had a different god, like a mascot.**

'We aren't mascots; we are their parents,' Hermes said cheerfully. Percy looked cheered by the fact that nobody was angry by his thought.

**Twelve cabins for the twelve Olympians. But why would some be empty?**

**I stopped in front of the first cabin on the left, cabin three.**

'My cabin!' Percy said excitedly, bouncing in his seat. Poseidon smiled at him, while Annabeth rolled her eyes and shut him up by giving him a kiss, then telling him to read.

**It wasn't high and mighty like cabin one, but long and low and solid. The outer walls were of rough gray stone studded with pieces of seashell and coral, as if the slabs had been hewn straight from the bottom of the ocean floor.**

**I peeked inside the open doorway and Chiron said, "Oh, I wouldn't do that!"**

'You're lucky you're my son, otherwise you'd be blasted to pieces!'

**Before he could pull me back, I caught the salty scent of the interior, like the wind on the shore at Montauk. The interior walls glowed like abalone. There were six empty bunk beds with silk sheets turned down.**

'It sounds awesome!' Thalia said. When everyone looked at her, she shrugged and said, 'I've never been in there before!'

**But there was no sign anyone had ever slept there. The place felt so sad and lonely, I was glad when Chiron put his hand on my shoulder and said, "Come along, Percy."**

**Most of the other cabins were crowded with campers.**

**Number five was bright red—a real nasty paint job, as if the color had been splashed on with buckets and fists.**

'Mine,' Ares and Clarisse grunted.

**The roof was lined with barbed wire. A stuffed wild boar's head hung over the doorway, and its eyes seemed to follow me. Inside I could see a bunch of mean-looking kids, both girls and boys, arm wrestling and arguing with each other while rock music blared. The loudest was a girl maybe thirteen or fourteen. She wore a size XXXL CAMP HALF-BLOOD T-shirt under a camouflage jacket. She zeroed in on me and gave me an evil sneer.**

**She reminded me of Nancy Bobofit,**

'You have a death wish, Prissy!'

'When does he not?' Annabeth sighed.

**though the camper girl was much bigger and tougher looking, and her hair was long and stringy, and brown instead of red.**

'Those are more differences than similarities,' Grover observed.

**I kept walking, trying to stay clear of Chiron's hooves. "We haven't seen any other centaurs," I observed.**

**"No," said Chiron sadly. "My kinsmen are a wild and barbaric folk,**

'Party Ponies rule!' Hermes, the Stoll twins and Apollo yelled.

**I'm afraid. You might encounter them in the wilderness, or at major sporting events. But you won't see any here."**

**"You said your name was Chiron. Are you really ..."**

**He smiled down at me.**_**"The **_**Chiron from the stories? Trainer of Hercules and all that? Yes, Percy, I am."**

**"But, shouldn't you be dead?"**

'What's with Percy and touchy subjects?' Katie asked to nobody in particular.

'I'm here, you know,' Percy grumbled.

**Chiron paused, as if the question intrigued him. "I honestly don't know about**_**should **_**be. The truth is, I**_**can't **_**be dead. You see, eons ago the gods granted my wish. I could continue the work I loved. I could be a teacher of heroes as long as humanity needed me. I gained much from that wish ... and I gave up much. But I'm still here, so I can only assume I'm still needed."**

**I thought about being a teacher for three thousand years. It wouldn't have made my Top Ten Things to Wish For list.**

'It would not have made any sort of Wish List of mine!' The Stolls said in unison.

**"Doesn't it ever get boring?"**

**"No, no," he said. "Horribly depressing, at times, but never boring."**

'Isn't boring better than depressing?' Thalia pondered at the same time Connor said, 'Why does he get horribly depressing?'

'To Thalia: yes, boring is better than depressing, and to Connor, it's mostly because of all the demigods he has seen die,' Percy, not Annabeth, answered this question. At all the questioning glances, he said, 'I talked to Chiron about this when I returned from the quest.

**"Why depressing?"**

**Chiron seemed to turn hard of hearing again.**

**"Oh, look," he said. "Annabeth is waiting for us."**

**The blonde girl**

'Come on! You know my name, why can't you use it?' Annabeth complained. Percy rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly.

**I'd met at the Big House was reading a book in front of the last cabin on the left, number eleven.**

**When we reached her, she looked me over critically, like she was still thinking about how much I drooled.**

A great shout of laughter was heard from everybody.

**I tried to see what she was reading, but I couldn't make out the title. I thought my dyslexia was acting up. Then I realized the title wasn't even English. The letters looked Greek to me. I mean, literally Greek.**

'Lame,' Nico snorted.

**There were pictures of temples and statues and different kinds of columns, like those in an architecture book.**

'_Because_, it _was_ an architecture book,' Annabeth rolled her eyes.

**"Annabeth," Chiron said, "I have masters' archery class at noon. Would you take Percy from here?"**

**"Yes, sir."**

**"Cabin eleven," Chiron told me, gesturing toward the doorway. "Make yourself at home."**

**Out of all the cabins, eleven looked the most like a regular old summer camp cabin, with the emphasis on**_**old**_**.**

'Hey!' Hermes and his kids yelled.

**The threshold was worn down, the brown paint peeling. Over the doorway was one of those doctor's symbols, a winged pole with two snakes wrapped around it. What did they call it...?**

'Why can't _anyone_ remember it?'

**A caduceus.**

'Oh!'

**Inside, it was packed with people, both boys and girls, way more than the number of bunk beds. Sleeping bags were spread all over on the floor. It looked like a gym where the Red Cross had set up an evacuation center.**

**Chiron didn't go in. The door was too low for him. But when the campers saw him they all stood and bowed respectfully.**

'We respect Chiron!' The Hermes kids said at once.

**"Well, then," Chiron said. "Good luck, Percy. I'll see you at dinner."**

**He galloped away toward the archery range.**

**I stood in the doorway, looking at the kids. They weren't bowing anymore. They were staring at me, sizing me up. I knew this routine. I'd gone through it at enough schools.**

**"Well?" Annabeth prompted. "Go on."**

**So naturally I tripped coming in the door and made a total fool of myself.**

'Naturally,' Nico snickered. He failed to see a hand rounding towards the back of his head, and ended up with a knot there.

**There were some snickers from the campers, but none of them said anything.**

**Annabeth announced, "Percy Jackson, meet cabin eleven."**

**"Regular or undetermined?" somebody asked.**

**I didn't know what to say, but Annabeth said, "Undetermined."**

**Everybody groaned.**

'It's disappointing how you can't claim your kids; especially for Hermes. Imagine, your kids sit in their father's cabin, and don't even know it,' Percy informed the gods.

The gods looked guilty. Apollo snapped his fingers and said, 'All my kids in your cabin have been claimed.' Hermes smiled gratefully and did the same.

**A guy who was a little older than the rest came forward.**

**"Now, now, campers. That's what we're here for. Welcome, Percy. You can have that spot on the floor, right over there."**

**The guy was about nineteen, and he looked pretty cool. He was tall and muscular, with short-cropped sandy hair and a friendly smile. He wore an orange tank top, cutoffs, sandals, and a leather necklace with five different-colored clay beads. The only thing unsettling about his appearance was a thick white scar that ran from just beneath his right eye to his jaw, like an old knife slash.**

**"This is Luke," **

The demigods' and satyr's faces darkened.

**Annabeth said, and her voice sounded different somehow. I glanced over and could've sworn she was blushing.**

**She saw me looking, and her expression hardened again. "He's your counselor, for now."**

**"For now?" I asked.**

**"You're undetermined," Luke explained patiently. "They don't know what cabin to put you in, so you're here. Cabin eleven takes all newcomers, all visitors. Naturally, we would. Hermes, our patron, is the god of travelers."**

**I looked at the tiny section of floor they'd given me. I had nothing to put there to mark it as my own, no luggage, no clothes, no sleeping bag. Just the Minotaur's horn. I thought about setting that down,**

The Stolls got a mad gleam in their eyes.

**but then I remembered that Hermes was also the god of thieves.**

'Aww, shoot!' The two yelled.

**I looked around at the campers' faces, some sullen and suspicious,**

**some grinning stupidly, some eyeing me as if they were waiting for a chance to pick my pockets.**

**"How long will I be here?" I asked.**

**"Good question," Luke said. "Until you're determined."**

**"How long will that take?"**

'It can take any amount of time.'

**The campers all laughed.**

**"Come on," Annabeth told me. "I'll show you the volleyball court."**

**"I've already seen it."**

'Gods!' Thalia groaned. 'Can't you take a hint!'

**"Come on." She grabbed my wrist and dragged me outside. I could hear the kids of cabin eleven laughing behind me.**

'Sorry!' All the kids who had been there said.

**When we were a few feet away, Annabeth said, "Jackson, you have to do better than that."**

'Ooh, busting out the last name, eh?'

'Nico, I am seriously going to kick your butt!'

**"What?"**

**She rolled her eyes and mumbled under her breath, "I can't believe I thought you were the one."**

'But he is!'

'DI ANGELO!'

'Okay, shutting up.'

**"What's your problem?" I was getting angry now. "All I know is, I killed some bull guy—"**

**"Don't talk like that!" Annabeth told me. "You know how many kids at this camp wish they'd had your chance?"**

'How stupid was I?'

**"To get killed?"**

**"To fight the Minotaur! What do you think we train for?"**

**I shook my head. "Look, if the thing I fought really was**_**the **_**Minotaur, the same one in the stories ..."**

**"Yes."**

**"Then there's only one."**

**"Yes."**

**"And he died, like, a gazillion years ago, right?**

'Percy, um, there isn't anything called "gazillion",' Katie said hesitantly. Percy huffed.

**Theseus killed him in the labyrinth. So ..."**

**"Monsters don't die, Percy. They can be killed. But they don't die."**

**"Oh, thanks. That clears it up."**

**"They don't have souls, like you and me. You can dispel them for a while, maybe even for a whole lifetime if you're lucky. But they are primal forces. Chiron calls them archetypes. Eventually, they re-form."**

**I thought about Mrs. Dodds. "You mean if I killed one, accidentally,**

'Accidentally, my ass!'

'LANGUAGE THALIA!'

**with a sword—"**

**"The Fur ... I mean, your math teacher. That's right. She's still out there. You just made her very, very mad."**

**"How did you know about Mrs. Dodds?"**

**"You talk in your sleep."**

'So you watch him sleep,' Nico waggled his eyebrows. Annabeth whacked him on the back of his head.

**"You almost called her something. A Fury? They're Hades' torturers, right?"**

**Annabeth glanced nervously at the ground, as if she expected it to open up and swallow her.**

**"You shouldn't call them by name, even here. We call them the Kindly Ones, if we have to speak of them at all."**

**"Look, is there anything we**_**can **_**say without it thundering?" I sounded whiny,**

'When are you not?' Clarisse questioned.

**even to myself, but right then I didn't care. "Why do I have to stay in cabin eleven, anyway? Why is everybody so crowded together? There are plenty of empty bunks right over there."**

**I pointed to the first few cabins, and Annabeth turned pale. "You don't just choose a cabin, Percy. It depends on who your parents are. Or... your parent."**

**She stared at me, waiting for me to get it.**

**"My mom is Sally Jackson," I said.** **"She works at the candy store in Grand Central Station. At least, she used to."**

Everyone looked sad.

**"I'm sorry about your mom, Percy. But that's not what I mean. I'm talking about your other parent. Your dad."**

**"He's dead. I never knew him."**

**Annabeth sighed. Clearly, she'd had this conversation before with other kids.**

**"Your father's not dead, Percy."**

**"How can you say that? You know him?"**

'Not personally; not until I met you,' Annabeth smiled at Percy, who smiled back.

**"No, of course not."**

**"Then how can you say—"**

**"Because I know **_**you.**_ **You wouldn't be here if you weren't one of us."**

**"You don't know anything about me."**

'Yes you do,' Percy said to the book Annabeth.

**"No?" She raised an eyebrow. "I bet you moved around from school to school. I bet you were kicked out of a lot of them."**

**"How—"**

**"Diagnosed with dyslexia. Probably ADHD, too."**

**I tried to swallow my embarrassment. **

'Why?' Chris wondered.

'I felt embarrassed that she knew something I'd never told any of my friends, except Grover.'

**"What does that have to do with anything?"**

'It has to do with _everything_!'

**"Taken together, it's almost a sure sign. The letters float off the page when you read, right?** **That's because your mind is hardwired for Ancient Greek. And the ADHD - you're impulsive, can't sit still in the classroom. That's your battlefield reflexes. In a real fight, they'd keep you alive. As for the attention problems, that's because you see too much, Percy, not too little. Your senses are better than a regular mortal's. Of course the teachers want you medicated. Most of them are monsters. They don't want you seeing them for what they are."**

**"You sound like ... you went through the same thing?"**

'Most of the people do,' Katie shrugged.

**"Most of the kids here did. If you weren't like us, you couldn't have survived the Minotaur, much less the ambrosia and nectar."**

**"Ambrosia and nectar?"**

'Can you make my stop repeating _everything_?'

**"The food and drink we were giving you to make you better. That stuff would've killed a normal kid. It would've turned your blood to fire and your bones to sand and you'd be dead. Face it. You're a half-blood."**

**A half-blood.**

**I was reeling with so many questions I didn't know where to start.**

**Then a husky voice yelled, "Well! A newbie!"**

**I looked over. The big girl from the ugly red cabin**

'It's not ugly!' Clarisse yelled at Percy, who didn't give any sign he heard, and continued to read.

**was sauntering toward us. She had three other girls behind her, all big and ugly and mean looking like her, all wearing camo jackets.**

**"Clarisse," Annabeth sighed. "Why don't you go polish your spear or something?"**

**"Sure, Miss Princess," the big girl said. "So I can run you through with it Friday night."**

Annabeth smiled evilly at Clarisse.

_**''Errete es korakas!" **_**Annabeth said, which I somehow understood was Greek for 'Go to the crows!' though I had a feeling it was a worse curse than it sounded.**

'It is,' Hermes nodded gravely.

**"You don't stand a chance."**

**"We'll pulverize you," Clarisse said, but her eye twitched. Perhaps she wasn't sure she could follow through on the threat.**

**She turned toward me. "Who's this little runt?"**

**"Percy Jackson," Annabeth said, "meet Clarisse, Daughter of Ares."**

**I blinked. "Like ... the war god?"**

**Clarisse sneered. "You got a problem with that?"**

**"No," I said, recovering my wits. "It explains the bad smell."**

'And thus starts Percy Jackson and Clarisse la Rue's legendary rivalry!' Nico said in an announcer's voice.

**Clarisse growled. "We got an initiation ceremony for newbies, Prissy."**

'Oh!' Travis said slowly. 'That's how you get your nickname for Percy!'

**"Percy."**

**"Whatever. Come on, I'll show you."**

**"Clarisse—" Annabeth tried to say.**

**"Stay out of it, wise girl."**

'You have to be joking!' Nico yelled, while the demigods, except Clarisse, and satyr gaped at Percy. When the gods looked questioningly at their kids, they just shook their heads.

'I knew I'd heard that somewhere before,' Grover muttered.

**Annabeth looked pained, but she did stay out of it, and I didn't really want her help. I was the new kid. I had to earn my own rep.**

**I handed Annabeth my minotaur horn and got ready to fight, but before I knew it, Clarisse had me by the neck and was dragging me toward a cinder-block building that I knew immediately was the bathroom.**

**I was kicking and punching. I'd been in plenty of fights before, but this big girl Clarisse had hands like iron.**

Clarisse smirked.

**She dragged me into the girls' bathroom. There was a line of toilets on one side and a line of shower stalls down the other. It smelled just like any public bathroom, and I was thinking—as much as I**_**could **_**think with Clarisse ripping my hair out—that if this place belonged to the gods, they should've been able to afford classier toilets.**

'Ha ha!' Travis laughed. 'Yes Dad, why can't you afford classier toilets.

**Clarisse's friends were all laughing, and I was trying to find the strength I'd used to fight the Minotaur, but it just wasn't there.**

**"Like he's 'Big Three' material," Clarisse said as she pushed me toward one of the toilets. "Yeah, right. Minotaur probably fell over laughing, he was so stupid looking."**

Poseidon glared at Clarisse, and she flinched.

**Her friends snickered.**

**Annabeth stood in the corner, watching through her fingers.**

**Clarisse bent me over on my knees and started pushing my head toward the toilet bowl. It reeked like rusted pipes and, well, like what goes into toilets.**

**I strained to keep my head up. I was looking at the scummy water, thinking, I will not go into that. I won't.**

Aphrodite gagged.

**Then something happened. I felt a tug in the pit of my stomach.**

**I heard the plumbing rumble, the pipes shudder. Clarisse's grip on my hair loosened. Water shot out of the toilet,** **making an arc straight over my head, and the next thing I knew, I was sprawled on the bathroom tiles with Clarisse screaming behind me.**

**I turned just as water blasted out of the toilet again, hitting Clarisse straight in the face so hard it pushed her down onto her butt.**

**The water stayed on her like the spray from a fire hose, pushing her backward into a shower stall.**

Everyone (except the obvious) started laughing.

**She struggled, gasping, and her friends started coming toward her.**

**But then the other toilets exploded, too, and six more streams of toilet water blasted them back. The showers acted up, too, and together all the fixtures sprayed the camouflage girls right out of the bathroom, spinning them around like pieces of garbage being washed away.**

They started laughing like before.

**As soon as they were out the door, I felt the tug in my gut lessen, and the water shut off as quickly as it had started.**

**The entire bathroom was flooded. Annabeth hadn't been spared.**

'I wasn't happy with that!' Annabeth glared at her boyfriend. 'I was just lucky I was hit by shower water.'

**She was dripping wet, but she hadn't been pushed out the door. She was standing in exactly the same place, staring at me in shock.**

**I looked down and realized I was sitting in the only dry spot in the whole room. There was a circle of dry floor around me. I didn't have one drop of water on my clothes. Nothing.**

'Wow,' Hermes and Apollo gasped. Artemis whacked both of them on their heads.

'You've already seen it, you idiots!'

**I stood up, my legs shaky.**

**Annabeth said, "How did you ..."**

**"I don't know."**

'Yes you do,' Percy told the book.

**We walked to the door. Outside, Clarisse and her friends were sprawled in the mud, and a bunch of other campers had gathered around to gawk. Clarisse's hair was flattened across her face. Her camouflage jacket was sopping and she smelled like sewage.**

The demigods, excluding Chris and Clarisse, and Grover laughed loudly.

**She gave me a look of absolute hatred.**

'And the legendry hatred between Percy Jackson and Clarisse la Rue begins!' Nico announced in a commentator's voice, and ducked two whacks on the head.

**"You are dead, new boy. You are totally dead."**

**I probably should have let it go, but I said, "You want to gargle with toilet water again, Clarisse? Close your mouth."**

The demigods (again, excluding Chris and Clarisse) and satyr howled with laughter.

**Her friends had to hold her back. They dragged her toward cabin five, while the other campers made way to avoid her flailing feet.**

**Annabeth stared at me. I couldn't tell whether she was just grossed out or angry at me for dousing her.**

'Both.'

**"What?" I demanded. "What are you thinking?"**

**"I'm thinking," She said, "That I want you on my team for capture the flag."**

'The worst game of Capture the Flag ever,' Percy grumbled as he closed the book. 'Who wants to read next?'

'I guess I should get my turn over with,' Nico shrugged. The book flew to his hand and he started to read.

**I say, I am going to start asking questions every chapter now. Question of the chapter: What is Luke's favorite food? Bye, and belated Merry Christmas!**

**Stella**


	11. Author's Note 3

**Guys, I'm really sorry for not updating this story, but I have read it through and decided that I am going to rewrite it. I am working on rewriting the first chapter. I will not be deleting this story, but instead, tell when the first chapter is up and you can read it then. So sorry, but please, I only want to make it better!**

**Yours truly,**

**Stella**


	12. Author's Note 4

**Okay guys, the first chapter of the rewrite of this story is up. The story's name is the same as this. Happy reading!**

**Stella**


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